Honey Badger
Home to quite a number of wildlife, the African bush harbors quite a number of different species of animals and birds alike ranging from small to big. Among these animals is a honey badger which is part of the weasel family.
Commonly known as a ratel in Afrikaans, a honey badger is related to skunks, ferrets, wolverine, otters and other badgers inclusive.
A honey badger is one of the most fascinating creatures you will ever encounter during your visit to some of the remarkable places they are found in Africa. You will be impressed by its resilience, sheer audacity and remarkable survival skills in the jungle.
It derives its name “honey badger” from what seems to be its favorite food, honey. However, what they are actually looking to eat are the bee larvae found in honey.
You may wonder, what makes this small creature very fearless? For one , this little creature has a thick and coarse hair on its skin that is mostly black with wide gray patches on its back that can withstand stings and bites from venomous creatures and predators alike.
After a bite, a honey badger may lose consciousness only to wake up for a hunt or feast on its attacker. This feature enables it to endure attacks that would make other animals not lucky enough to have a honey badger’s features incapacitated.
On top of that, the honey badger is graced with a stocky, flattened body with short, strong legs along with fierce claws and sharp teeth making it a potentially formidable opponent capable of taking on a prey that is much larger or more fierce.
Honey Badger on grass
It’s giving skunk vibes, right? Well, at the base of its tail, a honey badger also has a stinky liquid just as powerful as that of a skunk stored in a gland. Normally, the icky smell is to mark territory, however, a honey badger releases the stinky smell in instances where it feels threatened or frightened to protect itself.
Even though they both release a stinky smell, the honey badger’s odor does not last as long as that of its relative, the skunk. However ,”leave me alone” message still gets across.
Does a honey badger have any sweet personality? The simplest answer to this question is no. It would be hard to find an animal more quarrelsome than our famous ratel.
The small yet fearless creature never starts fights it can not finish. With an added advantage of a tough and loose skin allowing it to easily twist around and attack an opponent that has grabbed it by the back of its neck, a ratel is not one to mess around with.
Habitat of a honey badger.
A honey badger is a mammal native to areas of Africa and western Asia. In Africa, it is most commonly found in the sub Saharan areas from the western cape in south Africa to southern Morocco and southwestern Algeria.
Meanwhile in Asia, it is found in western Asia’s Caspian sea, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and western India. Although they mainly live in dry areas, they can also be found in forests and grasslands given the fact that they are good swimmers and can comfortably climb trees.
Honey Badger in the wild
Subspecies of honey badgers
The honey badger was subdivided into different sub species according to size and extent of whiteness or grayness on the back in the 19th and 20th centuries.
However, as of 2005, 12 sub species are recognized as valid out of the 16 zoological species that were described and proposed as subspecies. Some of these subspecies include the following;
Indian Ratel: These are smaller in size with paler fur and have a less distinct lateral white band separating the upper white and lower black areas of the body. The Indian ratel is commonly found in western middle Asia .
However, outside the former Soviet Union, it is found in Afghanistan, Iran, western Pakistan and western India.
Nepalese Ratel: These have much longer woolier coats and have overgrown hair on their heels. The Nepalese ratel is most commonly found in Nepal and areas east of it.
White-backed Ratel: These are distinguished by their entire upper side from the face to half-way along the tail being pure creamy white with little traces of black hairs. They are found in areas of west Africa and southern Morocco.
Black Ratel: Commonly found in Ghana and northeastern Congo, these have a skin that is entirely black with thin and harsh airs.
Lake Chad Ratel: Found in Sahel and areas of Sudan, the lake Chad ratel has a very long coat on its back consisting of pure white bristle-hairs amongst the fine black underfur. It lacks the usual white bristle hairs in the lumbar area which is its distinguishing factor from other species.
Speckled Ratel: These are basically found in Sierra Leone with normally dense white coat over the crown which starts to thin out over the neck and shoulders continuing to the rump where it fades into black. It also has an extra lower molar on the left side of the jaw.
Turkmenia Ratel: These are similar to Indian and Nepalese ratel but are distinguished by its larger size and narrower postorbital constriction. Their natural habitat is mainly in Turkmenistan
Honey Badger walking
Honey Badger Diet
Of the weasel family, the honey badger has the least specialized diet ranging from small to big species of animals. With its long claws, the honey badger accesses most of its food by digging up burrows up to 9 feet(3 meters) long and up to 5 feet (1.5 meters) deep.
Due to the size of the burrows they dig up which eventually remain bare, honey badgers end up using them as resting places.
Sometimes, burrows made by bat-eared foxes, cape foxes, yellow mongooses and springhares are taken up by honey badgers as resting places.
Also, as their name suggests, honey badgers raid beehives for bee larvae and honey which is considered their favorite food. They also make delicacies of insects, birds, frogs, rodents, eggs, tortoise, lizards and turtles.
Vegetation ,roots, bulbs and some juicy fruits like berries also end up on their dinner plates.
Since they are extremely fearless creatures, some honey badgers have been witnessed chasing away lion cubs from a kill.
In the zoos, honey badgers are given meat to eat.
They also get to have a bone once every week to chew on and are offered some fruits to cool down the hot day. Of course, a scoop of honey is always much appreciated given the fact that it’s its favorite meal.
Honey Badger feeding on Bee larvae
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Family Life
Honey badgers usually like to live alone in loose homesteads, however, they may meet up at their favorite spots to sniff each other and play around at the end of the day marking the ground.
After conceiving, the female honey badger is left alone to produce and raise her young ones. A nursery chamber is dug up by the expectant mother and prepares a grass layer for a baby to sleep in
After a period of 7 to 10 weeks of gestation, a cub is born. Honey badgers, however, rarely have two cubs.at birth, the newborn cub is hairless with what looks like pink skin and blind.
After a week, the skin begins to change from pink to gray two weeks after which they grow fine gray hair. White stripes begin to appear after a week of that.
At the age of about 3 months, the little honey badger is almost a perfect mini of its parents. The perfect age for adulthood is when the honey badger is 6 months, however, it is not deemed ready to go off on its own until it is between 14 months and 2 years of age. This is because they need to be taught important hunting and survival skills.
Little Honey Badger
Conservation
Different species of honey badgers are considered endangered animals with human encroachment highly considered the main factor mainly reducing their food supply.
Since honey badgers also feed on birds, this makes them super unfriendly with poultry farmers who kill any they find preying on their birds.
Now, we all know that honey badgers love honey but so do humans. Bee keepers are definitely not about to give up their beehives with honey to these little creatures so they come up with measures to prevent these ratels from accessing them.
Since honey badgers can not jump, beekeepers have simply resorted to securing beehives a couple of feet high from the ground.
Conclusion
With the big five always considered the spotlight of every safari, the honey badger is a gentle reminder to us that the African wilderness has vast unique wildlife each with its own beautiful story of living and survival.
Honey badgers are definitely one of those creatures whose fascinating unique behavior would live lasting memories after an encounter with them. Be it that you are lucky enough to spot one during a game drive in the wild or at the zoo, you will never have enough of these creatures.
Reach out to Serengeti Mara Experts today to have a full blown game drive experience in the African wilderness with our extremely skilled and professional guides equipped with vast knowledge about all the vast species of wildlife the African jungle has to offer.
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