WHAT MAKES HONEY BADGERS SO SPECIAL?

1. Thick skull and dense bones: An HB is built for punishment – Mr Badger waskicked on the head by a giraffe when he was very young. The blow that wouldhave killed any other animal left him with a slight headache and a lesson learned.When Badgers climb trees, often they don’t bother to climb down again. It’s muchquicker to fall straight out and usually onto your head. Strong bones are essentialwhen dealing with large and strong mammalian prey like hyrax, and the young of porcupine and warthog.

2. Loose, thick, rubbery skin that fits a bit like a wetsuit: A great defence. A badger can turn almost 180 degrees within his skin. And when he is attacked, the HB will offer his foe the back of his neck where the skin is thickest, enabling him to swivel within his skin and deliver a nasty bite to the attacker’s throat.


3. A natural resistance to poisons: Essential when his favourite food could otherwise either bite or sting him to death. For reasons that are not clearly understood, honey badgers (and some of their relatives) are able to recover from the bites of deadly poisonous snakes, like the puff adder and the cobra. They can also sustain numerous bee stings, but have been know to die when trapped in a commercial hive. They are also capable of dealing with scorpions, even the most poisonous types.

4. Focus and determination: A badger’s motto is : If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again. Nothing can deter him once he has made up his mind. Failure is not a badger option.

5. Courage: An HB will think of nothing of appropriating a leopard or lion kill, and fights between leopards and badgers are not uncommon. Sometimes the badger is the winner!

6. Other defences: A large, crushing jaw and strong teeth, plus formidable, 4cm long foreclaws. Ideal for digging, ripping into beehives and tearing up the furniture in your house or the upholstery of your car. We speak from experience…

7. An awesome sense of smell: A badger is able to detect prey like beetle grubs or scorpions 40 cm below the ground.






8. An awesome smell of his own: Like his relative the skunk, a frightened or defensive badger may release a foul-smelling secretion from his anal glands.


9. Intelligence, of the highest order: HB is a lateral thinker. When hunting rodents, he fills in all but one of their escape holes either with earth or leaves, then waits in ambush at the one he has left open. To catch a scorpion or a lizard hiding under a stone, he will carefully lift one side of it and then drop it onto his prey to stun it. If one technique doesn’t work, he’ll stop, sit back and work out an alternative. For instance, when Badge couldn’t get a tortoise of out its shell, he tried drowning it instead (which didn’t work!). And as a last resort, he was never averse to asking for our help.

10. A sense of humour: Something that was always evident in Badge’s relationship with us and with our dog Nandi. He adored being the centre of attention. And he always loved to play, even when he was on his own.

A little chap with the heart of a lion!






Tomorrow: Growing Up