2022 | Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
Honey badger (Mellivora capensis) sand packing
A short post today, celebrating an internet favourite: the honey badger!
Take a look at the video in the tweet below, shot by Prof. Andrea Fuller of the University of the Witwatersrand. She’s head of the Wildlife Conservation Physiology team, which helps us understand how animals adapt to life in the arid zone. Although adapting isn’t quite what the tortoise in the video is doing:
Sand is used as a tool by a variety of animals, thanks to its ubiquity and the fact that even small creatures can manipulate tiny sand grains. For example, previously on this blog we’ve looked at the sandy defensive perimeter set up by corolla spiders, as well as crabs that use specially evolved back legs to carry sand and other items as camouflage. In the future we’ll also see how ant lions flick sand to destabilise and capture prey that wanders too close to their hiding place.
Honey badgers are destructive foragers, breaking plants, animals and the ground itself in their search for food and shelter. However, in the video, it’s not the damaged ground but an outcome of this destruction—the sand pile—that’s the key resource. And the patient ambush, waiting for the tortoise to emerge, adds another layer of complexity to this behaviour. The time that separates the honey badger’s sand use from its ultimate tasty reward requires it to inhibit its natural desire to keep trying to tear the tortoise apart (which honey badgers definitely also do). This kind of delayed gratification may only involve short-term planning, but it clearly suggests that it understands the eventual effect of its sand-packing technique.
In any case, the honey badger isn’t just a mindless attacking machine, no matter how well-built it is for conflict. And with more and more recreational wildlife watchers out there, alongside dedicated researchers like Prof. Fuller, our understanding of the honey badger’s technological prowess is only beginning.
Postscript: Stoffel’s story…
Zoo escapes are more common than you might think. Orangutans and octopuses are well known for making creative bids for freedom, and here’s evidence that you can add honey badgers to that list. In this video from the BBC Two show Honey Badgers: Masters of Mayhem, the star Stoffel uses rocks, branches and more to get out of what his keeper Brian Jones described as ‘Honey Badger Alcatraz’.
Once out, Stoffel would run amok, damaging things, eating other animals and even trying to fight lions. Raised in captivity from an early age, he isn’t suitable for release into the wild, instead becoming something of an ambassador for raising awareness of these widespread mammals.
Main image credit: Chris Jek; https://africageographic.com/stories/the-honey-badger/