Animalia-The+Honey+Badger

= (Mellivora capensis) = 
 * The Honey Badger **

Scientific Classification

 * **Scientific Name** || Mellivora capensis ||
 * **Kingdom ** || Animalia ||
 * **Phylum ** || Chordata ||
 * **Class ** || Mammalia ||
 * **Order ** || Carnivora ||
 * **Family ** || Mustelidae ||

Introduction
The honey badger is a small tenacious omnivore known as Africa's most fearless animal. Despite its name, it has more anatomical similarities to polecats than other badger species such as the American or European badger. Relative to other animals, the honey badger is unknown and seldom seen. It has few predators due to its aggressive self-defensive skills. It also has a distinctive jog-trot. Lastly, honey badgers have wide environmental tolerances; causing them to be classified as "Least Concern" by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).

<span style="color: #005aff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">What does it look like?
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The honey badger is a plump creature with short, yet strong limbs and long claws. In fact, the claws on the forefeet can be as long as 40 mm. It has a small and flat head with small eyes and no external ears. This is possibly an adaptation to avoid damage during a fight. As well, its skin is quite loose, allowing it to turn and twist freely within the fur. Its fur is longest on the hind legs and the tail. It has a large white band that runs from the top of the head to the tail, separating its silvery fur on its back from the black fur of the lower body. The lower body as well as the sides of the head are white in colour. Such distinct colouration makes them easily recognizable. Honey badgers that are completely black in colour are of the cottoni subspecies. As for size, the mature adult has a body length of between 65-70 cm(excluding tail) and a tail length of approximately 20-30 cm. The weight range for females is 6-10 kg while for males, it is 9-14 kg. Males are usually much bigger than females.

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Facinating Fact: Honey badgers can climb trees with almost the same agility as leopards

<span style="color: #005aff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Where does it live?
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The honey badger, a terrestrial animal, lives mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, it can also be found through the Middle East to southern Russia and even in India and Nepal. They are capable of living in a variety of habitats (wide tolerance), from semideserts to rain forests. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> || <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">South Africa Distribution Map: <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> ||
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Global Distribution Map:

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">For a bigger, labelled map (provided by the IUCN) visit: []

<span style="color: #005aff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Tough and Tenacious
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The honey badger is often referred to as the meanest animal in the world. For such a small animal it has notorious tenacity and courage. One interesting evidence of this animal's toughness is its ability to withstand the venom of various snakes that it feeds on. For the honey badger, the bites of poisonous snakes is no more than a bee sting. They can bite off heads of cobras and eat the entire snake. The metabolic adaptation that allows the ratel(another name for honey badger) to render the venom harmless is still unclear. However, many scientists believe that this ability is related to the difficulty snakes have when biting their tough, loose, and rubbery skin.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The honey badger's immunity to venom also proves useful when it breaks into nests of honeybees in search for its favourite food: honey. Although they can withstand bee stings, there is a limit before they retreat. They can also be extreamly aggressive and dangerous when angry. When fighting other animals, they attack them head on or they use their chemical weapon which is a discharge of foul-smelling odor from their anal glands. This repungnant smell usually keeps the predators away. The honey badger usually goes about in the wild disconcered about animals twice its size. Even old, weak ratels are able to protect themselves from predators with their aggressive combat skills. Clearly, honey badgers are fearless animals, contrary to their sweet and innocent name.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Below is a video provided by National Geographic that demonstrates the fearlessness of the honey badger:

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">media type="youtube" key="c81bcjyfn6U?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

Honey badgers are also known as ratels, or honey ratels. The word "ratel" is Afrikaans for rattle or honey comb. This name is also given to the SA defence force's most powerful armoured vehicle. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">
 * Facinating Fact: **

<span style="color: #005aff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Diet
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Although honey badgers are strong and fierce animals, they are omnivores. They feed on a variety of animals such as insects, birds, reptiles, rodents, rabbits, beetles. They even catch larger reptiles like crocodiles, pythons (3 meters long), cobras, and leguaans. They also eat fruits, berries, eggs, and various plants. Skilled in hunting, they usually find their prey through their precise sense of smell and they also digg to catch most of their prey. Since they are good tree climbers, they can climb trees to raid bee hives or bird nests.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">An interesting aspect of its search for honey is that it sometimes collaborates with the honeyguide bird (photo below). The honeyguide bird flies into the bush, looking for honeybee nests and when it locates one, it signals the honey badger to go there. The honeyguide bird itself has no way of breaking open the nest. However, the honey badger which has strong claws and a tolerance to stings, is able to break the nest and retrieve the honey comb to share with bird.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> || <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Honeyguide bird: <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> ||
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Honey badger and honeyguide bird collaborating:

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Video of Honey Badger collaborating with Honeyguide bird:
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">media type="youtube" key="3t_vXWgoWdc?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

Honey badgers are nocturnal during the summer and diurnal (active day and night) during the winter
 * Fascinating Fact: **

<span style="color: #005aff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Breeding
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">﻿Honey badgers do not have a breeding season; they give birth to cubs throughout the year. Only one or two young are produced every 18 months. After birth, the mother is solely responsible for taking care of her young. Cubs are born in a burrow prepared by the mother and she moves her young to a new den every few days by carrying the cub in her mouth (see picture below). Aftert two months, the cub's eyes open and at three months, it leaves the den and follows the mother around. At this time, it has developed the black and white colouration. The cub stays with the mother for about 14 months before becoming independent. This long period of time is required for the cub to learn the necessary survival skills from her mother (ie. techniques to dig and climb properly and to kill poisonous snakes). Because of this low birth rate, honey badgers are rare and exist at low densities in their habitat.

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<span style="color: #0b930b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">﻿The honey badger's tree climbing skill is not inherited-it must be taught by the mother.
 * <span style="color: #0b930b; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Fascinating Fact: **

<span style="color: #005aff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Predators
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Due to the honey badger's reputation for being aggressive and skillfull in combat, fully grown honey badgers are rarely confronted by predators. But bigger animals such as the lion and the leopard may sometimes attack them.

<span style="color: #005aff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Social System:
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">They are solitary and polygynous. Sometimes, males may form small groups.

<span style="color: #005aff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Threats
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Honey badgers are sometimes directly abused by apiculturists and livestock farmers. They can also be killed by indiscriminate trapping of other animals. Their body parts are also sometimes used as traditional medicine (reputation of tenacity).

<span style="color: #005aff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Resources
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Sentman, E. (2010). Ratel. //Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia//. Retrieved November 15, 2010, from Grolier Online <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">[]

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Kleiman, Devra G.. (2004). //Primates to true seals.// Index Vols 12-16. 2. ed. Farmington Hills, Mich: Gale Group. Print.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Piper, Ross. (2007). //Extraordinary animals: an encyclopedia of curious and unusual animals//. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Print.

Begg, Colleen, & Keith, Colleen. (2004). //Honey Badger//. Retrieved from []

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Begg, K., Begg, C. & Abramov, A. 2008. //Mellivora capensis//. In: IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.4. Retrieved from <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">http:[|www.iucnredlist.org].

<span style="color: #005aff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Image Resources
//Natural History Museum.// (2010). Honey Badgers. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Retrieved from []

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">//Keith & Colleen Begg.// (2004). Honey Badgers. Retrieved from []

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">//African Wild Magazine.// (2008). Wildlife Conservation Retrieved from []

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">//Wild Facts.// (2010). [Photograph]. Retrieved from []