How Do Badgers Work?

The term 'badger' refers to a number of animals in the weasel family with some amazing skills. Learn more about badgers in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Bogabam. Here. The badgers of popular
culture range quite a bit, from the dependable, no nonsense
badger of Wind and the Willows to the friendly and
faithful mascot of Hogwarts House Hufflepuff, to other sports mascots,

(00:22):
to dancing flash animations to the shall we say care
free honey badger of internet lore. As a group of animals,
badgers are equally varied. The name doesn't refer to one
specific animal. From an evolutionary standpoint, the badgers of the
world represent four separate evolutionary lineages within the weasel family

(00:44):
must Talladay, which also includes ferrets, otters, and wolverines, plus
a fit lineage represented by the two species of stink badgers,
which aren't even classified as weasels at all, but belong
to the skunk family. A fitted day, we spoke Emily Latch,
a wildlife geneticist in the Department of Biological Sciences at
the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She said badgers are found

(01:08):
nearly worldwide, living in diverse habitats and with diverse diets.
One of their most unique features is their shared adaptations
for fossa reality. Living underground, they have reduced eyes and ears,
enlarged fore limbs and claws for digging, and bodies that
are tapered at both ends. The American badger is a

(01:30):
good example of these adaptations. American badgers are mostly nocturnal,
mid sized carnivores that feed primarily on rodents, but also
things that hang out on the ground, like snakes and
ground dwelling birds. While they're found primarily in grasslands and
other treeless areas, they can hang out in forests too.
Unlike raccoons, coyotes, and white tailed deer, they're not thrilled

(01:53):
by the presence of humans and the roads and houses
and Verizon stores that come with us everywhere we go,
but since there's not much of an option these days,
they grudgingly tolerate suburban neighborhoods as long as there's plenty
of soil to dig around in. Latch said, American badgers
have few predators. Eagles and large carnivores such as wolves

(02:15):
and bears might occasionally kill a small badger, but mustelids
in general have a reputation for punching above their weight.
As for badgers, some species such as the American badger
or the honey badger have a well deserved reputation for
being aggressive. By the way, the verb badger, meaning to
persistently pester, actually doesn't come from the behavior of these animals,

(02:38):
but rather the behavior of dogs trained to bother badgers
during a fairly cruel medieval sport called badger baiting. One
thing that unites badgers from all the world over, from
North America to Africa to Southeast Asia is their habit
of digging and living in dens called sets, which consists

(02:58):
of an interconnected work of tunnels and chambers, and badgers
lived together in groups, the size of the group depending
on the size of the set. One European badger set
in southern England is thought to cover a territory of
over a square mile that's two thousand square meters, with
up to a hundred entrances. It provides shelter for not
only dozens of badgers, but rabbits and foxes too. Badgers

(03:22):
sleep and give birth in specified chambers of the tunnel
system and keep these burrows immaculately clean. They don't bring
food in or eliminate waste inside. Sets can also house
many generations of badgers, some have been found to be
over a hundred years old. Badgers are such prolific and
proficient diggers that they sometimes excavate ancient human artifacts and remains,

(03:46):
albeit in a more haphazard manner than your standard archaeologist.
For instance, in a European badger uncovered a two thousand
year old burial urn near the side of Stonehenge which
contained cremated remains and archer's wrist guard, a copper chisel,
and a bronze saw. Similarly, in Alberta, Canada, in a

(04:07):
farmer found a human skull sticking out of an American
badger hole in his cow pasture. It turns out the
skull belonged to an indigenous girl from the early eighteen hundreds,
a time before Europeans arrived in the area. Also found
in the badger's discard pile where many beads, brass, buttons,
and rings that would have been very valuable at the time,

(04:27):
suggesting that this was a personal stature who was probably
on route between places. One of the most heartwarming and
mystifying aspects of the American badger's social life is that
they often prefer to hunt alongside coyotes, even passing up
a hunting buddy of the same species to form a
short term hunting alliance with one of these canines. Scientists

(04:50):
believe that this unlikely partnership is convenient to both species
because they're hunting techniques are so compatible. The badger can
dig into a rodent's den and flush it out, only
for the roadent to be chased and caught by the
speedy coyote. Conversely, a coyote can chase the prey down underground,
only to be cornered by the ruthless badger. Badger's employ

(05:13):
a mix of vocalizations snarling, hisses, squeals, and growls to
scare off attackers, but they also released a stinky must
be smell if repellent sounds don't do the trick. Today's
episode was written by Jescelyn Shields and produced by Tyler Clang.
For more on this lots of other dependable topics, visit

(05:34):
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