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King of His Hill
Photograph by Colleen and Keith Begg
Belly down on the sand pile kicked up as he was digging for his dinner with inch-and-a-half-long (four-centimeters-long) claws, this male devours a gerbil. The small, burrowing rodents are a year-round diet staple, but honey badgers capture some 60 different species of prey, from tiny insects to springhares nearly a third their weight.
Adult male badgers weigh about 25 pounds (10 kilograms) and need almost three pounds (more than a kilogram) of food each day. Females, averaging 15 pounds (six kilograms), consume nearly two pounds (one kilogram) of meat daily, and must hunt even more prey to feed their offspring.
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