Honey badgers:

Fearless hunters

Badgers, members of the Mustelidae family are no strangers to us and some of you may have come across them in story books too as they are often featured in children's stories and even cartoons. However, the badger we are featuring today is special because it is considered to be a very ferocious animal that has even got into the Guinness Book of World Records as the most fearless animal.

The honey badger (Mellivora capensis or Ratel ) is distributed throughout most of Africa and western and south Asian areas of Baluchistan (eastern Iran), southern Iraq, Pakistan and Rajasthan (western India). It is the only species in the genus Mellivora and the subfamily Mellivorinae .

Even though it is small in size, it has proved its mite, especially when it comes to attacking venomous snakes and prey much bigger than it. So, in order to find out how strong and powerful this little creature is let's check out its size first. Similar in size and build to the European badger, Meles meles , honey badgers are heavily built, with a broad head, small eyes, virtually no external ears, and a relatively blunt snout. The length from head-and-body ranges from 60 to 102 cm with a tail of 16 to 30 cm.

The animal's height at the shoulder can be from 23 to 30 cm. The males sometimes weigh twice as much as the females.The weight range for females is 5 to 10 kg, while males range from 9 to 14 kg. The underparts, sides of its body and face are usually dark brown or black in colour, while the top of its head, neck and back are light grey or white. This coloration makes the honey badger very prominent during daylight. Some honey badgers, especially in the Ituri Forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, are completely black in colour..

Their small size,however, deceives many would be predators .Most animals that are bigger than the badger would approach it without any fear, least suspecting the strength of the animal. For instance, the honey badger is not afraid to challenge one of the most venomous snakes, the puff adder whose poison is said kill many people in Africa. It has been reported in the 2002 National Geographic documentary titled "Snake killers: Honey badgers of the Kalahari, how one of these creatures managed to grab food out of a puff adder's mouth. According to the documentary, the badger stole the meal out of the puff adder's mouth and casually ate it in front of the hissing snake. Then it turned on the adder and began to hunt it keeping up to its reputation as one of the fiercest hunters in its range. It succeeded in killing it and making a meal out of it but not before the venom of the adder, from bites it sustained during the hunt, made an impact on the badger. It had suddenly collapsed while eating,but surprisingly woken up after about two hours and continued its meal as if nothing had happened.

Don't you think it is amasing that such a small animal could have so much power to resist being killed by strong snake

 venom? Even though puff adders are among the badger's preferred venomous snakes, they are not the only animals it hunts. Its prey includes earthworms, insects, scorpions, porcupines, hares, ground squirrels, meerkats, mongooses and larger prey such as tortoises, crocodiles up to one metre in size, young gazelle and snakes (including pythons and venomous species). It also eats lizards, frogs, small rodents, birds and fruit. Honey badgers will dig into burrows of small rodents and flush them out for a small meal. The badger's large front claws make it adept at digging, and it is usually successful at capturing rodents. Birds of prey and jackals, aware of the honey badger's successful hunting strategies, tend to follow badgers and attempt to steal their kills.

It is also noted for its large appetite for beehives and commercial honey producers do not take kindly to the destruction of hives by these animals. Naturally the producers sometimes shoot, trap or poison badgers they suspect of damaging their hives, although badger-proof commercial bee hives have been developed.

The honey badger is found in arid grasslands and savannahs. It is a fierce carnivore with a keen sense of smell.

Even though predominantly solitary, small family groups of up to three individuals are occasionally seen. It is a nomadic animal and range over huge areas, which for an adult male may be as large as 600 km2.

Honey badgers are famously tough but they are not indestructible; lions and leopards routinely kill them and so do some humans, especially bee producers.

Females have just one offspring at a time, not the multi cub litters as thought previously. Though they care for their young for more than a year after birth, half of all cubs succumb to predators or starvation and die before achieving independence.

The female badger will give birth to a cub after a two months gestation period. As it grows, it learns to be aggressive to any other creature (e.g., curious jackals) as it travels across the desert. It relies on its mother for food and shelter as they regularly move and she digs new burrows.

As the little ones can prove to be a hazard when hunting, they are usually left at the den, where they can be vulnerable. Other honey badgers may drag cubs from their dens and eat them. Due in part to cannibalistic threats such as this, only half of badger cubs live to adulthood. As the cub grows up, its ability to navigate the tough terrain of the desert improves by learning from its mother to not only walk, but to also climb trees and to chase snakes.

The badger is not born with these vital skills for survival, they must be learned. And it has the world's best teacher, its mother, to teach it all the hunting skills it needs to live up to its reputation.

Once a mother is ready to rear another cub, the other cub is old enough and skilled enough to survive alone, so it makes its own way in the world, leaving its mother behind. This happens a few months after the cub has been born.

Facts and pix: Internet

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Fact file

* Honey badgers are known for their snake-killing abilities; they use their jaws to grab a snake behind its head and kill it.

* The Endangered Wildlife Trust of South Africa works to save the honey badger and other African species of animals from extinction. They sell realistic looking fluffy toys of various African animals including a mother and baby honey badger.

* Honey badgers can devour a snake (150 cm/5 ft or less) in 15 minutes.

* A 2009 issue of Scientific American claims that pound for pound the honey badger is the world's most fearsome land mammal due to its favourable claw to body ratio and aggressive behavioural tendencies.

* Adult honey badgers rarely serve as prey for pythons, wolves, bears, lions, tigers and leopards; their ferocity and thick, loose skin makes it difficult to grip or suffocate them. It is able to twist inside its own skin and bite whatever is holding it.

* Honey badgers are intelligent animals, and are one of few species capable of using tools. In the 1997 documentary series Land of the Tiger, a honey badger in India was filmed making use of a tool. The animal rolled a log and stood on it to reach a kingfisher fledgling stuck up in the roots coming from the ceiling in an underground cave.

* South Africa's National Defence Force calls its armoured personnel carriers 'ratels', the Afrikaans word for these beasts.

* A modern fairytale with honey badgers is called 'Honey Badgers' by Jamison Odone. In this witty tale, a honey badger couple find a human baby in a basket and decide to adopt him.

* The honey badger is prominent in African myth,

* The Puff Adder (Bitis arietans ) which the honey badger attacks is considered to be Africa's deadliest snake because it is responsible for the most human fatalities. Puff Adders reach an average length of around one metre, and they're solidly built with a wide girth. Colour patterns vary, depending on where they live, their habitats extend throughout Africa except for dense rain forests and deserts. The Puff Adder has large fangs and its venom is powerful enough to kill a grown man with a single bite. Puff Adders rely on camouflage for protection and lie still if approached. Because of this, people tend to step on them and get bitten. Many fatalities occur because bites are not treated correctly, leading to infection and gangrene.