Honey Badger

The honey badger is a member of the Mustelidae family. The honey badger is distributed throughout most of Africa and western and south Asian areas of Baluchistan, southern Iraq, Pakistan and Rajasthan. It is the only species in the genus Mellivora and the subfamily Mellivorinae. The badgers have been named the most fearless animal in the Guinness Book of World Records. The under parts, 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 gray or white. This coloration makes the honey badger particularly conspicuous in daylight. Some honey badgers, especially in the Ituri Forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, are wholly black.
Honey badgers are similar in size and build to the European badger, Meles meles. They are heavily built, with a broad head, small eyes, virtually no external ears, and a relatively blunt snout. The head and body length ranges from 60 to 102 cm, plus a tail of 16 to 30 cm. The animal height at the shoulder can be from 23 to 30 cm. Males sometimes weight twice as much as females. The weight range for female is 5 to 10 kg, while males range from 9 to 14 kg. Their small size can be deceiving to many would be predators. There have been numerous accounts where lions, tiger and bears have been killed when trying to eat a honey badger.
The honey badger can be found in grasslands and savannahs. Honey badgers are fierce carnivores with a keen sense of smell. They are known for their snake-killing abilities, they use their jaws to grab a snake behind its head and kill it. Honey badgers can devour a snake in less than 15 minutes. Badgers have a large appetite for beehives. Commercial honey producers do not take kindly to this destruction and sometimes shoot, trap, or poison badgers they suspect of damaging their hives, although badger-proof commercial bee hives have been developed.
A bird, the honey guide, has a habit of leading badgers and other large mammals to bee’s nests. When a badger breaks into the nest, the birds take their share. Honey badger is among the fiercest hunter in its range, with prey including earthworms, insects, scorpion, porcupines, hares, ground squirrels, meerkats, mongooses, and larger prey such as tortoises, young crocodiles, young gazelle and snakes. They also take lizards, frogs small rodents, birds and fruit. The badger’s ferocious reputation reflects its tendency to attack animals larger than itself, it is a seldom preyed upon.
Adult honey badgers rarely serve as prey for pythons, wolves, bears, lions, tiger 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.