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A honey badger walking across dry ground, its black body and broad white back stripe clearly visible

Beastfile · Mammals

Honey Badger

Mellivora capensis

Also known as Ratel

Loose skin, a bad attitude, and genuine resistance to cobra venom.

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Overview

The honey badger’s reputation is mostly earned, and the reasons are structural. Its skin is thick and remarkably loose, so an animal that grabs it finds the badger able to rotate inside its own hide and bite back. It also carries a mutation in the receptor that snake neurotoxins target, the same adaptation the mongoose has, which gives it real resistance to cobra venom rather than simple bravado. It digs constantly, raids bee nests for larvae as much as honey, and has been recorded using objects to climb, which is rare outside the primates and a handful of birds.

A honey badger in profile showing its pale back stripe and heavy claws

Origin

Sub-Saharan Africa through the Arabian peninsula and into southwest Asia and India, across savannah, grassland, desert edge and forest.

Habitat

Savannah

Notable Traits

  • •Skin loose enough to turn inside its own hide
  • •A receptor mutation giving real resistance to snake venom
  • •Raids bee nests mainly for the larvae
  • •Recorded using objects as tools to climb
  • •Digs powerfully with long front claws

Conservation

Least Concern, with a very wide range. Locally it is killed by beekeepers and farmers, and it takes losses from poisoned bait set for other animals.

🤯 Fun Facts

📁 Related Files

Honey Badger

The honey badger is officially the world most fearless animal, and nothing can touch it.

That was a 2002 print edition of Guinness. Lions and leopards prey on them, and adult annual mortality runs at 34 percent.

6 sourcesRead the evidence
A honey badger foraging in the African savanna, showing its distinctive black and white markings

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