Class:Mammalia
Order:Carnivora
Family:Mustelidae
The badger (Meles meles, Linnaeus, 1758) is a carnivorous mammal belonging to the Mustelidae family. It is a protected species and is also known as the “common badger” or “European badger” to avoid confusion with other badger species. The common badger inhabits most of Europe, as well as parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. In Italy, the species is present throughout the peninsula but is absent from Sicily, Sardinia and the smaller islands. With a length of one metre and a weight of almost 15 kg, this animal is one of the largest species of mustelids. It has an almost bear-like appearance, with a sturdy body and short, strong legs with large claws suitable for digging: the characteristic black mask on its white face makes it unmistakable.
It is a nocturnal animal that spends the day sleeping in one of the many burrows it digs in its territory, which are often shared with other animals. When disturbed, the badger proves to be a formidable and tenacious opponent.
An adult badger measures 60–90 cm in length, plus 11–24 cm for its tail, with a height at the withers of 25–30 cm: at the same age, males are only slightly longer than females, but considerably heavier. As they usually hibernate, the weight of badgers varies seasonally.
The badger has an unmistakable appearance: a stocky, sturdy body with a small, elongated head with large ears, a bull-like neck, and short legs and tail.
Its fur is thick and bristly on its back and sides, while it is less dense on its belly, with an almost hairless groin area. Its coloring is very distinctive and easily recognizable. The back is silvery gray, with straw-colored sides. The tail has very long, bristly hair of the same color as the back, although females also have white hair. The belly is brown, with the lower belly and groin area taking on grayish tones. The throat, neck, chest, and legs are black, as are the two bands that start at the upper lip, pass over the eyes, and reach the ears, which are also black, forming the characteristic and unmistakable mask, about 2 cm thick at the base of the muzzle and up to 5 cm in the temple region. The face, chin, sides of the neck, and tips of the ears are white.
The paws are digitigrade and columnar: the hind paws are shorter than the front ones, but all have bare soles and non-retractable claws, which are curved and blunt-tipped, perfect for digging.
The head is elongated. The eyes are small and dark brown, with round pupils; the ears are up to 7 cm long. The long, cylindrical snout ends in a muscular, flexible nose that gives the badger a very powerful sense of smell. There are numerous whiskers around the snout and eyes. Badgers have rather poor eyesight, but their hearing is comparable to that of humans.
Feeding
Generally, at least half of the badger’s diet, especially in spring, consists of earthworms, while in autumn acorns predominate, followed by cereals, fruit, tubers, and meat, mostly from carrion. When available, the animal consumes wheat, corn, oats, and barley, as well as various types of fruit that have fallen from the branch because they are ripe or due to wind or rain, berries, fleshy roots, oak acorns, and mushrooms. Especially during winter and dry periods, badgers also feed on grasses and clover to obtain water. It also eats various types of insects and other invertebrates, small mammals, reptiles and small snakes (including vipers), amphibians, birds and their eggs and nestlings. Larger animals are usually only eaten once they have died from other causes in the form of carrion, although badgers are perfectly capable of killing prey comparable in size to themselves or even larger.
Especially in rocky or mountainous areas, where earthworms and plant-based food are scarce, badgers tend to feed mainly on animal-based food, actively hunting rabbits: the animal rarely preys on adult specimens, unless they are sick or injured, and normally focuses on young animals, which are located in their burrows thanks to the keen sense of smell of this mustelid, which then digs vertically into the ground until it reaches the chamber where its prey is located.
Sociality and relationships with humans
The European badger is an essentially crepuscular/nocturnal animal and is highly social compared to other badger species: in fact, these animals usually live in groups of 5-6 individuals, but associations of more than 20 badgers have also been observed. Within the groups, there are hierarchical dynamics, although these have not yet been studied in depth: the largest and strongest specimens show dominance over the young and smaller ones; in addition, grooming has often been observed among members of the same group.
During the day, badgers rest in their setts. Building and maintaining their setts is their main activity, especially during spring and fall. The European badger’s den is probably the most complex of all the various species of badger, and is passed down from generation to generation for decades or even centuries, being continuously enlarged and renovated: a den observed in England had 50 chambers and 178 entrances, for a total of 879 m of underground tunnels spread over more than thirty square meters of surface area and five meters in depth. Badgers dig their burrows in woodland soil, starting from natural cavities in the ground or rocks, along natural and artificial embankments or at the base of a tree: it consists of an entrance and a more or less long tunnel that leads after 5-10 m to a living chamber usually located between 1 and 2.5 m deep in the ground, ellipsoidal in shape, which the animal, especially during the cold season, lines with dry leaves, ferns, and moss, which it then removes and replaces with extreme skill.
During winter, the badger carries the lining of its den outside during the day so that it can warm up in the sun, then brings it back inside for the night. Several tunnels branch off from the main chamber and lead to the outside, which the animal uses both for travel and as simple air vents: some of them may even be used only on special occasions, such as in case of danger or during play. Numerous paths lead from the outside of the den, well-trodden by the frequent passage of the animal, as badgers tend to use fixed routes when moving around.
A single burrow can house several family groups, each of which tends to use its own entrances and tunnels. Each family unit generally has three chambers: if an individual dies inside one of the chambers, its housemates cover it with earth and block the entrance to the chamber, or bury it outside the burrow. Sometimes the badger may share its burrow with other animal species, such as the wild rabbit: however, in order to avoid falling prey to the badger (whose mere presence ensures protection from other, far more dangerous predators), the rabbit tends to dig its burrows from secondary tunnels in the badger’s tunnels.
The red fox is also a common roommate of the badger: the two animals tolerate each other in a sort of commensalism, with the badger keeping the den clean and the fox bringing food scraps near it, thus unintentionally contributing to the sustenance of its host. Sometimes, however, badgers behave aggressively towards foxes, chasing them away from their dens and in some cases killing their cubs, without feeding on them.
These animals are monogamous: pairs tend to stay together for life. The male mates only with his partner, while the female may also mate with other males, to the extent that it is estimated that about half of the cubs a female gives birth to during her lifetime are not the offspring of her partner. The females’ estrus lasts 4-6 days and can occur at any time of the year, although it generally tends to fall in spring-summer: similarly, males are most fertile between January and May, with spermatogenesis declining between summer and winter. Dominant females are generally the only ones to go into heat.
The female gives birth to 1-5 cubs in a chamber of the den dedicated to them. At birth, they are blind, semi-naked, pinkish in color with sparse grayish fur; they measure about ten centimeters in length and weigh between 75 and 132 g, with an inverse proportionality between birth weight and litter size. At around 3-5 days of age, claws appear on their toes and areas of black fur become distinguishable on their bodies, including the characteristic mask. Their eyes open at 4-5 weeks of age and around this time their milk teeth also begin to appear. At two months of age, baby badgers already have their definitive coloration and begin to venture outside the den, while at three months they begin weaning, which is usually completed only after a further two months.
Sexual maturity is generally reached at around 9-15 months of age in males, while females, although they can begin ovulating as early as nine months of age, generally do not reproduce successfully before their second year of life. Young animals generally remain in their home group even after they have grown up, but it is not uncommon for females around two years of age to leave their group to join other communities.
The life expectancy of badgers in the wild varies between four and fifteen years.
Badgers are typically found in oak and mixed deciduous forests, but they also adapt easily to bushy areas, pastures, and is also found in Mediterranean scrubland and mountainous areas up to an altitude of 2000 m in the Alps and up to 2500 m in the Caucasus, provided there is a minimum of vegetation cover to ensure adequate shelter. It avoids marshy areas, coastal areas, and coniferous forests, while rocky areas are colonized provided there are natural cavities where it can shelter, including abandoned buildings. The badger is very adaptable to human impact: in fact, it colonizes suburban areas, gardens, and cultivated areas without major problems (although not very frequently).
Another guest in badger dens is the raccoon dog: where the ranges of the two species overlap, it is not uncommon for the two animals to share the same chambers, sleeping together during winter hibernation, probably because the raccoon dog tends to hibernate a couple of weeks after the badger and to emerge a couple of weeks earlier. In this case too, although there are reports of mixed litters of badgers and raccoon dogs in the same chamber, the badger does not hesitate to chase away or kill its roommates.
