Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
With its wide, flat body, very short legs, and grayish brown coat, a hunkered-down badger very much
resembles a doormat, albeit one with a head sporting black and white facial markings. From two to two
and a half feet long, badgers are sturdy creatures that weigh as much as twenty-five pounds.
In company with skunks, badgers seem unlikely relatives of the svelte, swift weasel, fisher, marten,
or mink. However, they bear the unmistakable hall-marks of their kin, including the anal scent glands.
Badgers have developed several adaptations marvelously suited to such subterranean proclivities as
tunneling after ground squirrels, prairie dogs, mice, and other small rodent prey; scooping out burrows
for daytime sleeping; and digging themselves rapidly out of sight if danger threatens.
Foremost among these adaptations is a set of incredibly long, strong front claws. A full two inches
long, they would do justice to an animal many times the badger's size. These are coupled with another
adaptation, webbed front toes. Thus the badger, using its powerful front limbs, can rip out the soil with
its great claws and hurl the loosened earth backward with its scooplike front feet. In earth suited for
digging, a badger, clouds of dirt flying behind it, can dig its way out of sight in about two minutes!
A third adaptation is a transparent inner eyelid, called a nictitating membrane. This can be drawn
across the eye when necessary to keep dirt out, enabling the badger to see even when digging furiously.
People who have never encountered a badger—if they think about badgers at all—tend to regard
them as relatively placid and benign creatures. Those who have had dealings with badgers know better.
Probably much of this image can be traced to Kenneth Grahame's great classic,
The Wind in the
Willows.
In the utterly charming world that Grahame constructed, Mr. Badger is a gruff but kindly indi-
vidual, possessed of great wisdom and integrity. Badgers are gruff, all right, but kindly they are not! A
nineteenth-century writer, John Clare, summarized the badger's disposition with great accuracy: “When
badgers fight, then everyone's a foe.”
Black footed ferret
(top)
; badger
