The Insane Biology Of The Honey Badger

Honey badgers possess remarkable defensive adaptations making them “ferocious hunters known to take on powerful animals such as South African oryx—large horned antelope that’s more than 10 times size of honey badger.” As “fearless predators honey badgers won’t hesitate to take down scorpion or venomous snakes for dinner.”

“Obvious place to start about ancestors of honeybadgers then is with fossils of animals that were clearly very similar to them and at least two such fossil species have been identified. Mellivora sivalensis was first described in 1860s and lived in what is now Pakistan around start of Ice Ages 2 million years ago—it hasn’t been well studied and only known from one location.” “Benfield’s honey badger Mellivora benfieldi with fossils known from Italy, South Africa and possibly Ethiopia. Ethiopian fossil almost certainly honey badger but not complete enough for us to know whether same species or otherwise unknown relative.”

“Mother honey badgers spend long time raising each pup 14-18 months and as honey badger baby grows its mom slowly introduces it to venomous animals starting with milder scorpion and moving up venom ladder until youngster is eating cobras and puff adders.” “Age of sexual maturity for either gender not well known but suspected to be 2-3 years old for males and 12-16 months for females thus indicating that males are not sexually mature upon independence unlike that of females.”

“Home range of honey badger varies with gender—with females influenced by food source availability and males by frequency of receptive females within specific range.” “Females utilize extensive home range due to limited food resources and long cub dependency following seasonal pattern of movement in response to seasonal food supply. Females do not actively defend territory nor do they commonly interact with each other but do depict loosely territorial behavior such as urinating in areas where they forage.”

“Honey badgers are tolerant of snake venom,” often tangling with venomous snakes, but “one misconception is that honey badgers are naturally immune to venom.” As “fearless predators won’t hesitate to take down scorpion or venomous snakes for dinner—however those meals fight back and honey badger may receive mean bite or sting from prey such as highly venomous Cape Cobra whose venom can temporarily knock it out, but after couple of hours honey badger wakes up and continues its meal.”