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A European badger skeleton at the Royal Veterinary College Skull of a European badger Dentition. European badgers are powerfully built animals with small heads, thick, short necks, stocky, wedge-shaped bodies and short tails. Their feet are plantigrade [23] or semidigitigrade [24] and short, with five toes on each foot. [25]
In Europe, badgers were traditionally used to predict the length of winter. [59] The badger is the state animal of the U.S. state of Wisconsin, [60] though this is a reference to the state's early miners rather than the animal itself, and Bucky Badger is the mascot of the athletic teams at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The genus Meles was erected by French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1762 after Carl Linnaeus had described the Eurasian badger Meles meles in 1758. This animal had a very extensive range over most of temperate Europe and Asia and there has been much discussion as to whether it is a single or three distinct species.
Martens are largely arboreal, while European badgers dig extensive tunnel networks, called setts. Only one mustelid has been domesticated; the ferret . Tayra are also kept as pets (although they require a Dangerous Wild Animals licence in the UK), or as working animals for hunting or vermin control.
The American badger is a member of the Mustelidae, a diverse family of carnivorous mammals that also includes weasels, otters, ferrets, and the wolverine. [4] The American badger belongs to the Taxidiinae, one of four subfamilies of mustelid badgers – the other three being the Melinae (four species in two genera, including the European badger), the Helictidinae (five species of ferret ...
Image credits: an1malpulse #5. Animal campaigners are calling for a ban on the public sale of fireworks after a baby red panda was thought to have died from stress related to the noise.
Habitats vary widely as well, from the arboreal marten to the fossorial European badger to the marine sea otter. Population sizes are largely unknown, though two species, the sea mink and Japanese otter , were hunted to extinction in 1894 and 1979, respectively, and several other species are endangered .
Renowned for its tenacity, the actual honey badger is an animal with a reputation for confronting almost any other species when there's no chance of escape, regardless of the adversary's size or ...