Honey Badgers: The Underdog Icon
Fearless and ferocious, that's a honey badger for you.
The honey badger (Mellivora capensis), also known as the ratel is a mammal found in many countries of Africa, the middle-east, and the Indian subcontinent. The name ‘honey badger’ may bring to mind a sweet, harmless woodland creature, but do not be fooled.
They are listed in the ‘Least Concern’ category on the IUCN Red List, possibly due to complex geographical and ecological reasons. However, if you were to ask anyone who has seen them up close, watched one of the highly popular YouTube videos (starring them in the lead action role) or even heard of their escapades, they would probably attribute it to their legendary ferocity.
“Honey badgers don’t care” is a common saying, ever since they went viral in the 2010s. Indeed, many believe that the Guinness Book of World Records has named them the most fearless animal; one just has to Google “honey badger” and “Guinness” to find myriad articles stating this. This is untrue, although, if they were to develop a way to measure fearlessness objectively, the numbers might as well favour this little beast.
This highly aggressive creature is not an extraordinarily large or imposing animal (at first glance, at least). The adult stands 25–30 cm at the shoulder and is 60–77 cm long. The tail adds another 20–30 cm to its length. It has the proportions of a small to medium sized dog; one might even call them cute, if one were unaware of just how often they punch above their weight.
Honey badgers are stocky and heavily built with powerful 1.5-inch-long teeth, with a bite strong enough to crack a tortoise shell. They have a layer of loose skin around their muscular neck underneath the fur. This skin is thick and very hard to penetrate. When in grasp of a predator, this allows the honey badger to whip about and take a bite right out of it. In this video, capturing an altercation between two honey badgers and six lionesses, one may witness exactly such action. Despite the size disparity and number disadvantage, the badgers are able to survive the event. In fact, they have been reported multiple times to have gone up against lions. Here is another video showing a lone honey badger facing off against an adult male lion, and successfully driving it away.
The lion isn’t the only mighty animal that has been challenged by the honey badger. The animal is known to charge at buffaloes and rhinos alike, if one strays too close to its den or its offspring. Here is a video showing a honey badger charging a fully-grown leopard, while issuing forth its rattling growl, and winning this fight too. This one shows a honey badger fighting two jackals over a python, and winning its dinner. In 2018, one honey badger was caught on camera while picking a fight with an antelope 20 times its size. Honey badgers really don’t care.
Clearly, they aren’t shy about showing their teeth to much bigger animals. That isn’t all. They regularly survive hundreds of bee stings while raiding bee hives; it is the bee larvae they are after. And, unlike the rest of us who prefer to avoid venomous snakes, they actively hunt them for food (up to 25% of their diet is made up of snakes). Of course, the little devils are also immune to a multitude of snake venoms. They are also persistent hunters and travel up to 32 kilometres in pursuit of a meal.
These prickly beasts are not afraid to pick a fight with a bigger animal, will frequently and successfully defend against larger predators, don’t give up easily and shrug off bee stings and snakebites fatal to others. It is no wonder that they are a viral sensation.
Editorial Support: Phoenix Content India
