Badger

A badger is a short, stocky mammal with a flat body, strong legs, and long front claws built for digging. Badgers belong to the weasel family, which also includes otters, wolverines, and ferrets. There are about eleven different species of badger. They live across North America, Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa.

Most badgers are easy to recognize. They have black and white stripes on their faces, gray or brown fur on their backs, and a low body that sits close to the ground. An adult badger usually weighs 15 to 30 pounds, about the size of a medium dog. The American badger lives in the open grasslands of the western United States, Canada, and Mexico. The European badger lives in forests and fields across Europe.

Badgers are famous for digging. Their front claws can be two inches long, and they use them to tear through hard soil in seconds. A badger can dig itself out of sight faster than a person with a shovel. Underground, badgers build homes called setts. A European badger sett can have many rooms and tunnels, stretching more than 100 feet. Some setts have been used by family after family of badgers for over 100 years.

Most badgers are solitary and come out at night. They eat almost anything they find: worms, insects, mice, frogs, roots, and fruit. A European badger may eat several hundred earthworms in a single night. American badgers sometimes team up with coyotes to hunt ground squirrels. The badger digs out the burrow while the coyote catches any squirrel that runs. Both animals eat better when they work together.

The honey badger, found in Africa and parts of Asia, is one of the fiercest animals of its size. It has thick, loose skin that bites and stings can barely hurt. Honey badgers will charge lions, chase hyenas away from their food, and raid beehives even while bees sting them. Their name comes from their love of honey and bee larvae.

Badgers show up often in human stories. In Britain, Mr. Badger is a wise character in the classic book The Wind in the Willows. In Japan, folktales tell of the tanuki and the mujina, tricky shape-shifting badgers. The state of Wisconsin is even nicknamed the Badger State, after miners in the 1800s who dug tunnels to live in, like badgers. For such a quiet animal, the badger has left a big mark on the world above ground.