When conditions are harsh hard frosts, dry or barren areas of habitat , worms can be scarce. Cleverly, badgers are able to shift to other food items, including snails, slugs and soft fruit like raspberries and fallen blackberries. Badgers will occasionally eat hedgehogs if normal prey items are not abundant - read more about badgers and hedgehogs below. Badgers mate at almost any time of the year, but due to an unusual reproductive technique, known as delayed implantation, they have only one litter a year.
Litter size ranges from one to five cubs, with two or three the more common number. Cubs are born in chambers lined with bedding material that the females sows gather and drag into the breeding chamber. Straw, hay, grass, fern are all commonly used, which keep the cubs warm.
Most cubs are born in early to mid-February and will emerge above ground at around 12 weeks. At 16 weeks, cubs will be displaying most adult social behaviours, including grooming and scent marking. Badgers also have a number of interesting housekeeping and territory behaviours. The earliest traces of badgers in Britain have been dated back to three quarters to half a million years ago, according to a study by Yates , meaning badgers once co-existed with wolves, brown bears, arctic foxes and wolverines, all of which once roamed Britain!
Badger setts vary from occasionally used "outliers", which often have single entranced tunnels, to vast, ancient underground complexes with multiple entrances. These larger setts can extend from 20 to metres or more, with some of the largest having more than 50 entrances! Such elaborate setts can take many years to create and are passed down through generations — some setts can be more than years old.
These are the family homes, used, maintained and enlarged at will by generations of the same social group. The badger can grow up to 1 metre in size and has loosely fitting skin, which makes it difficult for an antagonist to get a firm grip of the badger in a fight. A thick layer of subcutaneous under the skin fat develops during autumn in order for the badger to live off fat reserves when going into torpor during winter.
Body weight of adult badgers is variable and can depend on several factors; the differing seasons, the area in which they live, the amount of food available and their age. Badgers are at their heaviest in late autumn as they fatten up for winter.
They then feed less, spend more time inactive underground, and their weight falls away. Sows females are at their lightest after giving birth. The short dark and white hair on the face gives the UK badger Meles meles; European or Eurasian badger its iconic striped features, with black ears tipped in white.
Most badgers appear grey in colour on the main body, with a lighter colour on the underbelly, although some can appear to be a shade of brown on the back and side. Badgers have black hair on their legs and chest. Some differences in hair colouring can be staining caused by environmental surroundings and this is more noticeable in underbelly hairs. The ventrum is a buffy color. The face of the badger is distinct. The throat and chin are whitish, and the face has black patches. A white dorsal stripe extends back over the head from the nose see photo.
Badgers occur north through the central western Canadian provinces, in appropriate habitat throughout the western United States, and south throughout the mountainous areas of Mexico source: Animal Diversity Web.
Badgers prefer to live in dry, open grasslands, fields, and pastures. They are found from high alpine meadows to sea level. Badgers occur in open habitats in eastern Washington including semi-desert, sagebrush, grassland, meadows, and grassy bald spots on high ridge tops.
They can be present in open forest primarily Ponderosa Pine with grassy ground cover. Click the range map to learn more about the distribution of Badgers in Washington. Diet: Badgers are carnivorous meat eater. They eat a variety of small animals, including pocket gophers, ground squirrels, moles, marmots, prairie dogs, woodrats, kangaroo rats, deer mice, and voles. They also eat insects and birds.
Behavior: Badgers are solitary animals who are mainly active at night. They tend to be inactive during the winter months. They are not true hibernators, but spend much of the winter in cycles of torpor that usually last about 29 hours. Badgers are known to be excellent digging machines. Their powerfully built forelimbs allow them to tunnel rapidly through the soil and other substrates. Their prominent, sharp teeth, long foreclaws, and stocky build allow them to easily rip meat from bone.
They can adapt to a variety of conditions, from warm rain forests to cool mountains. Their home ranges can be as vast as about square miles square kilometers.
Most honey badgers are active throughout the day, though near human settlements they may prefer the cover of darkness. Honey badgers mate all year and often have just one cub at a time. Good at turning rock crevices and hollowed trees into shelters, honey badgers will also make homes in the abandoned dens of other animals like porcupines and yellow mongooses.
Though honey badgers are widespread and considered abundant , they are hunted or persecuted in certain regions, especially when they come into conflict with farmers and beekeepers. All rights reserved. Common Name: Honey Badger. Scientific Name: Mellivora capensis. Type: Mammals. Diet: Omnivore. Group Name: Cete or Clan. Size: 9 to 11 inches high at shoulder.
Weight: 13 to 30 pounds. Least concern.
0コメント