Why are honey badgers so strong, fearless, and aggressive?
Legends surround the extreme fearlessness of honey badgers. Wildlife documentary enthusiasts know that honey badgers hunt venomous snakes, fearlessly confront larger opponents, and sometimes even attack lions, buffaloes, and horses. Often, they emerge victorious from these battles.
How is this possible? One of the secrets lies in the honey badgers’ very thick skin. It is challenging to bite through with teeth or pierce with, for example, porcupine quills. Some describe their skin as “loose,” emphasizing its elasticity and stretchability. This allows a captured honey badger to twist, turn, and continue attacking its assailant. Despite its pliability, the skin is quite dense – locals say that neither arrows nor machete blades penetrate it.
For attacks, honey badgers have short but powerful paws with long, curved claws. Nature bestowed these claws upon them for digging burrows and destroying termite mounds and beehives. However, the fearlessness of honey badgers allows them to employ their claws in battle. The powerful paws help them fend off attackers and pursue prey for an extended period until it succumbs, thoroughly exhausted. So, their ability to drop a “stink bomb” is not their only weapon!
But what about snake venom? It appears that honey badgers have an antidote in their system. It is known that honey badgers hunt venomous cobras, for example. If a cobra bites the honey badger before dying, the venom may induce a kind of lethargy. However, about two hours later, the animal wakes up, fully reenergized, and calmly finishes consuming the slain cobra. And that is if the snake’s fangs manage to catch the badger and penetrate its skin.
There are speculations about how this might work. Honey badgers are not the only animals capable of neutralizing snake venom. This ability is also present in opossums, hedgehogs, skunks, mongooses, and some other animals. For instance, mongooses have a different protein composition in their muscle and nerve cells, preventing toxin molecules from binding and causing paralysis. Other animals have substances in their blood that neutralize venom toxins. The specific physiological mechanism of protection against venom in honey badgers remains unknown.
Another defense mechanism is the ability to release a liquid with a strong, unpleasant odor in dangerous situations. Enlarged anal glands are responsible for this. The foul smell can deter insects like bees and larger animals that honey badgers might encounter. In this aspect, they resemble skunks.
Finally, let’s talk about bee stings. How do honey badgers avoid the consequences when infiltrating a beehive? In most cases, honey badgers don’t feel the stings and are unaffected by them, thanks to their thick skin. There is a widespread belief that bees don’t harm them at all. However, there are rare instances of honey badgers trapped in beehives, enduring prolonged attacks, and eventually succumbing to numerous stings.
Nevertheless, more often than not, honey badgers remain alive and nearly unharmed. Their character, marked by bravery and active defense quickly turning into aggression, plays a crucial role. In this aspect, honey badgers resemble their family relative, the wolverine, which inhabits northern latitudes. While the honey badger has been spotted attacking lions and buffaloes, wolverines sometimes engage bears in a similar manner.
