The honey badger (Mellivora capensis), also known as the ratel ( or ), is a mammal widely distributed across Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. It is the sole living representative of the Mellivorinae subfamily of the Mustelidae.
It has a fairly long body, with a distinctly thick-set and broad back, and remarkably loose skin, allowing the badger to turn and twist freely within it. The largest terrestrial mustelid in Africa, the honey badger measures long and weighs up to . Sexual dimorphism has been recorded in this species, with males being larger and heavier than females. It has two pairs of mammae, and an eversible anal pouch.
The honey badger is a solitary animal that can be active at any time of day, depending on the location. It is primarily a carnivorous species and has few natural predators because of its thick skin, strength and ferocious defensive abilities. Adults maintain large home ranges, and display scent-marking behavior. The species has no fixed breeding period. After a gestation of 50–70 days, a female will give birth to an average of one to two cubs that will remain under her care for 1– years. Because of its wide range and occurrence in a variety of habitats, it is listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List. In popular media, the honey badger is best known as an aggressive, intelligent animal that is fearless and tough in nature.
Taxonomy Viverra capensis was the scientific name used by Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber in 1777 who described a honey badger skin from the Cape of Good Hope. Mellivorae was proposed as name for the genus by Gottlieb Conrad Christian Storr in 1780, while Mellivorina was proposed as a tribe name by John Edward Gray in 1865. The honey badger is the only living species of the genus Mellivora. Although in the 1860s it was assigned to the badger subfamily, the Melinae, it is now generally agreed that it bears few similarities to the Melinae. It is much more closely related to the marten subfamily, Guloninae, and furthermore is assigned its own subfamily, Mellivorinae.
Subspecies In the 19th and 20th centuries, 16 zoological specimens of the honey badger were described and proposed as subspecies. Points taken into consideration in assigning different subspecies include size and the extent of whiteness or greyness on the back. , 12 subspecies are recognised as valid taxa: Subspecies and authorityDescriptionRangeSynonymsCape ratel (M. c. capensis) (Schreber, 1776)South and southwestern Africamellivorus (Cuvier, 1798) ratel (Sparrman, 1777) typicus (Smith, 1833) vernayi (Roberts, 1932)Indian ratel (M. c. indica) (Kerr, 1792)Distinguished from capensis by its smaller size, paler fur and having a less distinct lateral white band separating the upper white and lower black areas of the bodyWestern Middle Asia northward to the Ustyurt Plateau and eastward to Amu Darya. Outside the former Soviet Union, its range includes Afghanistan, Iran (except the southwestern part), western Pakistan and western Indiamellivorus (Bennett, 1830) ratel (Horsfield, 1851) ratelus (Fraser, 1862)Nepalese ratel (M. c. inaurita) (Hodgson, 1836)Distinguished from indica by its longer, much woollier coat and having overgrown hair on its heelsNepal and contiguous areas east of itWhite-backed ratel (M. c. leuconota) (Sclater, 1867)The entire upper side from the face to half-way along the tail is pure creamy white with little admixture of black hairsWest Africa, southern Morocco, former French CongoBlack ratel (M. c. cottoni) (Lydekker, 1906)The fur is typically entirely black, with thin and harsh hairs.Ghana, northeastern Congosagulata (Hollister, 1910)Lake Chad ratel (M. c. concisa) (Thomas and Wroughton, 1907)The coat on the back consists largely of very long, pure white bristle-hairs amongst long, fine, black underfur. Its distinguishing feature from other subspecies is the lack of the usual white bristle-hairs in the lumbar areaSahel and Sudan zones, as far as Somalilandbrockmani (Wroughton and Cheesman, 1920) buchanani (Thomas, 1925)Speckled ratel (M. c. signata) (Pocock, 1909)Although its pelage is the normal dense white over the crown, this pale colour starts to thin out over the neck and shoulders, continuing to the rump where it fades into black. It possesses an extra lower molar on the left side of the jawSierra LeoneEthiopian ratel (M. c. abyssinica) (Hollister, 1910)EthiopiaPersian ratel (M. c. wilsoni) (Cheesman, 1920)Southwestern Iran and IraqKenyan ratel (M. c. maxwelli) (Thomas, 1923)KenyaArabian ratel (M. c. pumilio) Pocock, 1946Hadhramaut, southern ArabiaTurkmenian ratel (M. c. buechneri) Baryshnikov, 2000Similar to the subspecies indica and inaurita, but is distinguished by its larger size and narrower postorbital constrictionTurkmenistan
Evolution The species first appeared during the middle Pliocene in Asia. A number of extinct relatives are known dating back at least 7 million years to the Late Miocene. These include Mellivora benfieldi from South Africa and Italy, Promellivora from Pakistan, and Howellictis from Chad. More distant relatives include Eomellivora, which evolved into several different species in both the Old and New Worlds, and the giant, long-legged Ekorus from Kenya.
Etymology The genus name, Mellivora, is derived from Latin, meaning "honey eater", while the species name, capensis, pertains to the location where the type specimen was discovered: the Cape of Good Hope. The origin of the word ratel is uncertain, but is thought to either be derived from ratel, which is Dutch for rattle or from the Dutch word raat, meaning honeycomb.
Description
The honey badger has a fairly long body but is distinctly thick-set and broad across the back. Its skin is remarkably loose, and allows the animal to turn and twist freely within it. The skin around the neck is thick, an adaptation to fighting conspecifics. The head is small and flat, with a short muzzle. The eyes are small, and the ears are little more than ridges on the skin, another possible adaptation to avoiding damage while fighting. The honey badger has short and sturdy legs, with five toes on each foot. The feet are armed with very strong claws, which are short on the hind legs and remarkably long on the forelimbs. It is a partially plantigrade animal whose soles are thickly padded and naked up to the wrists. The tail is short and is covered in long hairs, save for below the base.
The honey badger is the largest terrestrial mustelid in Africa. Adults measure in shoulder height and in body length, with the tail adding another . Females are smaller than males. In Africa, males weigh while females weigh on average. The mean weight of adult honey badgers from different areas has been reported at anywhere between , with a median of roughly , per various studies. This positions it as the third largest known badger, after the European badger and hog badger, and fourth largest extant terrestrial mustelid after additionally the wolverine. However, the average weight of three wild females from Iraq was reported as , about the typical weight of male wolverines or male European badgers in late autumn, indicating that they can attain much larger than typical sizes in favourable conditions. However, an adult female and two males in India were relatively small weighing and a median of . Skull length is in males and for females.
The honey badger has two pairs of mammae. It has an eversible anal pouch, a trait shared with hyenas and mongooses. The smell of the pouch is reportedly "suffocating" and may assist in calming bees when raiding beehives.
The skull greatly resembles a larger version of that of a marbled polecat. The dental formula is: . The teeth often display signs of irregular development, with some teeth being exceptionally small, set at unusual angles or absent altogether. Honey badgers of the subspecies signata have a second lower molar on the left side of their jaws, but not the right. Although it feeds predominantly on soft foods, the honey badger's cheek teeth are often extensively worn. The canine teeth are exceptionally short for carnivores. The papillae of the tongue are sharp and pointed, which assists in processing tough foods.
The winter fur is long, being long on the lower back, and consists of sparse, coarse, bristle-like hairs, with minimal underfur. Hairs are even sparser on the flanks, belly and groin. The summer fur is shorter (being only long on the back) and even sparser, with the belly being half bare. The sides of the head and lower body are pure black. A large white band covers the upper body, from the top of the head to the base of the tail. Honey badgers of the cottoni subspecies are unique in being completely black.
Distribution and habitat The honey badger ranges through most of sub-Saharan Africa, from the Western Cape, South Africa, to southern Morocco and southwestern Algeria and outside Africa through Arabia, Iran, and Western Asia to Turkmenistan and the Indian Peninsula. It is known to range from sea level to as much as in the Moroccan High Atlas and in Ethiopia's Bale Mountains. Throughout its range, the honey badger is predominantly found in deserts, mountainous regions and forests. These habitats can have an annual rainfall of as low as 100 mm in dry, arid regions to as high as 2,000 mm.
Behaviour and ecology
The honey badger is mostly solitary but has been seen in Africa hunting in pairs. It also uses old burrows of aardvark, warthog and termite mounds. In the Serengeti National Park, the activity levels of the honey badger was largely dependent on the time of year; in the dry season, it was mostly nocturnal, in contrast to the wet season, when it remained active throughout the day, reaching its zenith during crepuscular hours. In the Sariska Tiger Reserve in India, a study concluded that the honey badger was highly nocturnal. This finding was corroborated by another study in the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. The honey badger is a skilled digger, able to dig tunnels into hard ground in 10 minutes. These burrows usually have only one entry, are usually only long with a nesting chamber that is not lined with any bedding.
Adults control a patch of land known as a home range. Females establish a large home range that changes in size depending foremost on the abundance of food, and particularly when rearing young, while males' considerably larger home ranges depend on the availability of females in heat; this often leads to males' home ranges intersecting with that of about 13 females. Adult males have an average home range of , compared to females' average of . It is suggested that adult males have a dominance hierarchy, and that females tend to avoid contact with each other, displaying less profound territorial behavior in spite of the 25% overlap in female home ranges. In the wild, honey badgers were confirmed to scent-mark while squatting, and it is suggested that this behaviour is an "important form of communication". They frequently scent-mark their territories with anal gland excretions, feces and urine. According to personal accounts, honey badgers in captivity were said to scent-mark in a squatting position, releasing fluid from their anal glands.