Honey Badger

The honey badger (Mellivora capensis) is also known as the ratel. The name “ratel” comes from Afrikaans and refers to the animal’s rattling grunts when annoyed. They belong to the diverse Mustelid family of weasel-type animals. This family includes, obviously, weasels but also otters, skunks, ferrets, mink, wolverines, ermines and eight other badger species. (See the infographic at the end of this article.)

Distribution & habitat

Honey badgers are found across sub-Saharan Africa from the Western Cape in South Africa through to southern Morocco and south-western Algeria, and across to the Middle East and India (see map below).

They are found in a wide variety of habitats. These include tropical and subtropical green forests, thorn forests, open woodlands, riparian forests or grasslands, arid steppes, rocky hills, and deserts. Honey badgers are highly adaptable, living in areas with both high and low rainfall, as long as there is enough cover and a sufficient supply of food. They prefer areas with dense vegetation or rocky terrain, with rocky crevices and the possibility of burrowing for shelter and protection from predators and harsh weather.

Appearance and main adaptations

Honey badgers have broad saddle of coarse grey hair, edged with white, running from above the eyes to the end of their tail, which contrasts starkly with their jet-black underparts.

A male honey badger is about 25cm at the shoulder and weighs 9 to 16 kg. He is about one third bigger than the female. The honey badger has a muscular neck and shoulders and a low-slung, stocky body, with relatively short, but very powerful, legs. Honey badgers are primarily terrestrial but they are accomplished climbers and can scamper up a tree to raid bird nests or beehives. They are built for stamina, not speed, and their distinctive jog-trot allows them to pursue prey relentlessly until it collapses.

Skull, jaws & teeth

Honey badgers are equipped with a heavy skull, sharp teeth and powerful jaws, capable of delivering a strong bite and, for example, breaking open tortoise shells to get at the meat.

 Feet & Claws

Their broad, strong front feet have massive claws for digging (and are also formidable weapons). The claws are long and curved, for digging into the ground to extract prey or to create burrows. They can dig quickly and efficiently, a skill that is not only useful for hunting but also for creating burrows where they can rest or seek shelter from predators.

Burrowing

With its long claws, the honey badger digs burrows up to 3 meters long by 1.5 meters deep with its strong feet and long claws. A single tunnel ends in a chamber, which is usually bare, where the honey badger rests. Honey badgers also use rock crevices and holes under tree roots, old termite mounds, or the dens of other wildlife such as aardvarks, Cape foxes, bat-eared foxes, yellow mongooses, and springhares. They like to have access to a series of burrows within their home range.

Skin & fur

Honey badgers have thick, loose skin, particularly around their necks, which makes it difficult for predators to grasp and hold them. This allows the animal to twist around and bite an opponent that has grabbed it by the back of its neck.  

The thick skin of honey badgers and the coarse fur that covers it provide protection against bee stings, bites from other animals and snake fangs.  (Though their thick skin may offer them some protection from bees, they are not entirely immune to the effects of bee stings and can die of multiple stings.)

Resistance to snake venom

Honey badgers are known to eat a variety of venomous snakes such as cobras, puffadders and black mambas. This suggests that they have some resistance to snake venom and they have been known to sleep off the effects of a snake bite, although the exact physiological mechanism has not been demonstrated. This immunity may develop over a life-time due to regular contact with small amounts of venom in snakes, scorpions and bees. (Young cubs are prevented from catching poisonous snakes by their mothers until they have the necessary skills and coordination.)

Sense of smell

Honey badgers have an acute sense of smell which helps them to locate their prey, which they catch mainly through digging.

Anal secretion

The honey badger has a gland at the base of its tail that stores a strong-smelling liquid.  This is used in general to mark territory but if the honey badger is frightened or threatened, it drops a highly discouraging “stink bomb” (rather than spraying the odour like its skunk relative does).

Activities in a 24-hour period

Honey badgers are predominantly nocturnal, though often active in daylight. In the southern Kalahari, they switch from being predominantly nocturnal in summer to being diurnal in winter. However, in areas where honey badgers are affected by human activities they are usually nocturnal. They sleep below-ground in dens or above-ground in hollows and generally sleep most of the day, curled up into a ball to protect their face and belly.

They are highly active when awake and may travel 10 to 27 kms in a day in search of food and they need very large range areas.  They are solitary foragers and carry out a slow winding walk with continuous smelling of rodent and small reptile holes and scent trails. (They dig up most of their prey from underground.)

Though mostly solitary, honey badgers maintain loose home ranges that often overlap. They may meet up at favorite foraging areas, where they sniff each other and roll around to scent mark the ground. They grunt, squeak, hiss, and whine, and are known for their deep and ominous growl. Male interactions become aggressive if one of the males attempts to intrude into a marked burrow and they begin a dominance dance to determine who will stay. 

Diet

Honey badgers are opportunistic predators that prey on a wide variety of life forms. Their keen sense of smell helps them locate food underground. They dig out rodents, snakes, and insect larvae.  Their diet varies seasonally, with small mammals making up most of the diet (80%) during the season of highest small mammal abundance (September to December). They also eat scorpions, eggs, birds, insects and frogs. Large snakes make up a significant portion of the diet (58%) during the hot-wet season (January to April) as well as the young of larger mammals. They can scavenge small antelope kills from other carnivores and eat carrion if other nourishment is scarce. Surprisingly, honey badgers also sometimes eat juicy fruits, roots, and bulbs.

Their name suggests that honey is a major part of the animal’s diet. In fact, they are seeking the bee eggs, larvae and pupae found in the hives. The extent to which they eat honey is unknown.

Photo by Dominic Cram

There is anecdotal evidence that the greater honeyguide bird (Indicator indicator) directs the honey badger to wild beehives by calling and leading the way, so that the honey badger can break open the hive to feast on the honey and the bird is rewarded by getting to eat the leftovers once the honey badger has eaten its fill. There is no scientific evidence to support the existence of this relationship.

Reproduction

Males and females only meet up to mate and then go their separate ways. The scent-marking behaviour of honey badgers appears to play an important role in finding a mate. There are typically more males available to mate than there are receptive females, due to the 12 to 16 months the offspring are dependent on their mother. (Honey badgers only breed every 18 months to two years.) This means that adult male honey badgers are competing with each other for access to females.

The males play no part in rearing the young but the females are known as affectionate, protective and involved mothers. They usually only have one kit at a time (at the most two) after a six-month gestation period. Kits are born in a grass-lined burrow, naked and blind. The mother returns to the burrow to nurse and  will periodically (on average every 3 days) move her cub to a new den, carrying it in her mouth, to reduce the chances of the baby being discovered by a predator.

When the cub is two to three months old, the mother will begin to bring prey items back to the den. The kit remains underground until it is about 3 months old and weaned. By this time it has become a perfect miniature of its parents. The mother and youngster will then move to a different burrow each night. The mother provides all of the food for 10 to 12 months. The kit will stay with the mother for well over a year before going off on its own. During this long period of dependency, kits learn the skills of hunting, climbing and digging from their mother, as these do involve a certain degree of coordination and technique that takes some time to learn.

Versatility

Honey badgers are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They can use tools, such as sticks, to extract food from hard-to-reach places and have been observed working together in pairs to obtain food.

Predators & Self Defence

Honey badgers have few natural predators, despite their relatively small size.  They are notoriously aggressive animals and have earned a reputation for taking on much larger animals, including lions, leopards, and buffalo. However, the large cats, pythons and spotted hyena can prey on older honey badgers that are less capable of defending themselves.

The Guinness Book of Records lists the honey badger as the ‘most fearless animal in the world. There is an expression in Afrikaans “so taai soos ‘n ratel” which translates to “as tough as a honey badger”. Despite their ferocious reputation honey badgers are seldom unnecessarily violent. They will defend themselves if attacked, even against buffaloes or lions. Self-defence is typically accompanied by a threat display where the honey badger’s hair stands on end and the tail is held erect. The animal produces a loud booming ‘rattling-roar’ and will rush towards its attacker, rather than away from them.

Interactions with Humans

Honey badgers are:

  • Admired for their resilience and adaptability
  • Have their organs, skin, and other parts incorporated into traditional medicine as symbols of ferociousness and tenacity 
  • Efficient at controlling rodent and insect populations, and thereby effectively reducing some pest-borne diseases
  • Useful to apiculturists, as they act as honey guides to scout out potential locations for bee hives.

On the other hand, they have negative associations because they:

  • Are aggressive if startled by a human
  • Can carry rabies
  • Account for 26% of the damage done to commercial bee hives by breaking into the hives and eating the larvae, which results in a monetary loss for the beekeepers
  • Have been known to stray onto farmland and attack livestock. 

Conservation Status

The IUCN Red List identifies the species as “Least Concern” because, although the population is declining, the species has a broad geographic range and is not a dietary specialist. Honey badgers are, however, not common anywhere in their range and their status has risen to ‘Near Threatened’ in Southern Africa.

The largest threat to honey badgers is probably human encroachment, which reduces their food supply. Individuals are often killed, either intentionally or unintentionally, with traps and poison baits by farmers. Others are hunted for traditional medicinal remedies. Some beekeepers kill any honey badgers they see to protect their beehives. However, since honey badgers cannot jump, many beekeepers have found that simply securing the beehives a few feet higher off the ground discourages honey badgers from climbing up to reach them and keeps the bees and their honey safe.

Honey badgers are a protected species in Zimbabwe, but habitat loss and human-wildlife conflicts remain concerns for their conservation.

Sources

Paddy Pacey

Zimbabwean field guide and trainer of aspiring guides

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