Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00 You wouldn't want to be left alone with the world's most aggressive animal, the honey badger.
00:05 I'm Mario and this is M from Animals.
00:12 The honey badger is a member of a must-eat family like otters, european badgers, martens
00:16 and wolverines.
00:17 I mean this wolverine.
00:18 It can be found in the sub-saharan Africa, Iraq, Turkmenistan and India.
00:23 It measures 23 to 28 centimeters in shoulder height and 55 to 77 centimeters in length.
00:29 Having a tail which is 12 to 30 centimeters long.
00:32 Males are bigger than females, weighing 9 to 16 kilograms, while the females weigh 5
00:36 to 10 kilograms.
00:37 Not only are they larger, but they also occupy larger areas of 500 square kilometers, which
00:43 will overlap with the much smaller territories of other females.
00:46 After breeding, the female usually gives birth to two small honey badgers, which are also
00:51 called kits.
00:52 They can stay in the hole digged by the female in just 10 minutes using her big claws or
00:56 in a hole stolen from other animals.
00:58 The kits will live in the wild for about 8 years.
01:01 In captivity their lifespan can be tripled, living about 24 years.
01:05 Despite this major benefit, animals don't want to live in captivity.
01:09 And the honey badger is a master of escaping.
01:12 Why is it so good at escaping?
01:13 Well, the answer is in its amazing intelligence.
01:17 They have a relatively big brain.
01:19 They can open locked doors.
01:20 A male and a female can cooperate for doing this.
01:23 While one of them is unlocking the gate, the other one is ready to pull it.
01:32 You can try to lock the gate using a key.
01:34 No worries, the badger will dig under the fence.
01:38 So you decide to build a brick wall around the habitat to prevent the badger from digging
01:42 under it, the badger will find a solution and will use rocks or sticks to climb over
01:46 the wall.
01:47 Your last solution is taking everything the badger could use for climbing out.
01:51 The badger will make himself a bug ball big enough for the escape.
01:54 Didn't expect that, right?
01:56 Quick fact.
01:57 Despite its name, the honey badger isn't that closely related to other badgers.
02:01 Instead it has more anatomical similarities with weasels.
02:04 The name of the honey badger comes from its love for honey.
02:07 But not all of us will try to steal honey from a hive full of bees.
02:10 The honey badger is fearless.
02:12 It resists to the hundreds of stings because of its thick skin.
02:15 And for calming the bees it releases a suffocating smell like skunks do.
02:19 How it finds the hive is even more interesting.
02:21 A bird called honey guide finds the hive and attracts the badger to eat.
02:32 This symbiotic relation between them is called mutualism, in which both animals benefit from
02:37 cooperating.
02:38 The badger finds the hive and breaks it eating the honey and the larvae and the bird eats
02:42 the remains.
02:43 But the honey badger eats a lot of other things too, being an omnivore.
02:47 They will eat fruits and vegetables, such as berries, roots and bulbs.
02:51 Also they use their big strong teeth for eating insects, frogs, tortoises, rodents, turtles,
02:57 lizards, venmo snakes, eggs and birds.
03:00 They can usually hunt on any time of the day and become nocturnal in human populated places
03:05 having an excellent night vision.
03:07 Most of the time none of the larger predators like hyenas, cheetahs and lions will steal
03:11 its food.
03:12 Being very aggressive, it attacks the predators and doesn't run away.
03:15 There are known cases when six lions try to kill a honey badger.
03:25 For defense, the badger can become like a ball and its thick skin protects it from the
03:29 lion's claws.
03:32 Counterattacking and using its odor, the honey badger is able to escape from the lions.
03:37 In fact it has such a reputation that lions usually avoid it.
03:40 Actually, cheetah babies evolved to look like badgers to have a greater chance of survival.
03:45 Despite its small size, no other animal would dare to come in conflict with a honey badger,
03:50 the world's most aggressive and fearless animal.