Carnivores: Aardwolf African Wild Cat African Wild Dog Banded Mongoose Bat Eared Fox Black-backed Jackal Brown Hyena Cape Clawless Otter Cape Fox Caracal Cheetah Civet Dhole Large Spotted Genet Golden Jackal Honey badger Leopard African Lion Asiatic Lion Sand Cat Serval Side Striped Jackal Snow Leopard Spotted Hyena Striped Hyena Suricate (Meercat) Tiger White Tailed Mongoose Yellow Mongoose
Also known as Ratel
The Honey Badger is a short stocky animal with short legs and a short bushy tail. It is around 30cm high, and 90-100cm in length, weighing around 10-14Kg. The upper-parts are silver-grey, with the legs and under-parts being black. It has a large head and powerful jaws. The Honey badger has a very thick loose-fitting skin, which serves as protection from predators. Any predator biting the honey badger is likely to get a grip on the skin, but its loose fit means the honey badger can turn round inside the skin and fight back against the predator. The honey badger has long sharp claws used for defence (and attacking) and also for digging.
The Honey badger is mainly nocturnal but is also active around dawn and dusk (Crepuscular) and is sometimes active during the daytime. Honey Badgers have a reputation for aggression and if they fee threatened they will attack - even much larger animals such as Spotted Hyena or Lions, or even humans. As a result of this they are not often preyed upon. Folklore says that the Honey badgers first target in an attack is the testicles of its opponent, but this has not been proved or disproved. Honey Badgers live in burrows - often vacant burrows dug by other species such as the Aardvark, and which they have adapted using their claws for digging.
Honey badgers prey on rodents, reptiles, birds and invertebrates as well as eating carrion and fruit. A favourite food is honey, and Honey Badgers will break into beehives for the honey (usually destroying the hive in the process). Honey badgers are reputed to follow the Honey Guide bird to the hives - the bird benefits from the arrangement because the honey badger breaks the hive open exposing the honey, and the bird can then feast on the bits of honey that the badger leaves.
Honey Badgers use their sense of smell as well as their hearing to locate prey. If the prey is underground, the honey badger uses its strong claws to dig into termite mounds, rodent burrows etc to get at the prey. They sometimes raid farmers poultry and easily rip through wire mesh with their claws, and once inside the poultry enclosure will often kill far more chickens than it intends to eat. For this reason they are not popular with farmers.
Honey badgers have a gestation period or between 180 and 200 days, and the female gives birth to between 1 and 4 young..
Honey badgers are found in most habitats, ranging from arid to very wet, but are not found in deserts.
The honey badger is widely distributed across most of Africa, with the exceptions of true desert areas. The Honey Badger is also found in India and the middle east. The honey badger is found in low densities.
© Predator Conservation Trust.
