What are the natural enemies of "Brother Flat Head" honey badger?

"Brother Pingtou" honey badger is a famous animal among network celebrities, and its fearless personality has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts. Some photos of wild animals show that they dare to confront leopards and even lions. Although this animal is very fierce and good at fighting, there are still many wild animals that can kill and eat it because of its size. So, what are the natural enemies of Brother Pingtou?

Wolves and honey badgers are enemies.

In Kalahadi Cross-border Park (a wildlife sanctuary at the junction of South Africa and Botswana), honey badger expert Berg and others investigated the relationship between honey badger and other carnivores in the area. They divided 20 kinds of carnivores in the park into three grades according to their weight: small ones less than 1 kg, medium ones 1- 12 kg, and large ones 12 kg.

In this case, the honey badger (female 6.2kg, male 9.2kg) is classified as a medium-sized carnivore, and the black-backed jackal about the size of the honey badger also belongs to the medium-sized category.

Except for brown hyenas and cheetahs, all large carnivores have preyed on adult honey badgers and young honey badgers. Medium-sized jackals have no record of preying on adult honey badgers, but they will kill small honey badgers.

Experts found that small carnivores can only be used as prey for honey badgers, while among medium-sized carnivores, only black-backed wolves can pose a threat to honey badgers, and there are three records of preying on small honey badgers. Black-backed jackals are a threat to honey badger cubs. Four times, it was observed that the female honey badger (with cubs less than one month old in the nest) angrily drove the jackal 80- 100 meters away from the nest.

The female honey badger is not without reason. In two of the four incidents, when the female honey badger was foraging at a distance of 10 meter, Hu Lang put her head and shoulders into the honey badger's nest and tried to take out the young honey badger and eat it.

Wolves in other areas also prey on honey badgers. Scholar Yoffie 1993 pointed out that two golden-backed wolves in northern Niger killed a honey badger cub.

Large carnivores are the main natural enemies of honey badgers.

Among large carnivores, lions and leopards have killed honey badgers, and Dalmatians may have killed honey badgers. Among the seven adult male honey badgers killed, according to the footprints of the lion at the scene and the puncture wounds on the skull of the honey badger, three of them were obviously made by lions. Among the killed female honey badgers, one was confirmed to have been killed by a leopard, and two were killed by large carnivores according to footprints and bite marks. Three cubs were killed by large predators, two of them were female honey badger and cubs.

There is no interaction between Kalahadi cheetah and honey badger, but in Limpopo province, Tolak reported an example of cheetah trying to prey on sub-adult honey badger in 2005.

In the picture above, the lioness bit the little honey badger. The average animal is definitely powerless at this time, but the honey badger is different. In fact, the little honey badger broke away from the lioness and continued to fight for her own survival and the pride.

Unlike the public's impression, honey badgers are not fearless. They will try their best to avoid encountering large predators. Experts found that the honey badger changed its direction after smelling fresh footprints on the grass for 7 times (the lion sniffed 4 times, the leopard sniffed 1 time, and the hyena sniffed twice). Once, a male honey badger smelled the lion's footprints and ran into a nearby cave in horror until the next day.

Scholar Enhle Kheswa and others pointed out in the article 20 18 that the existence of leopards had a negative impact on the occurrence rate of honey badgers in Isiman Gliso Wetland Park in South Africa, indicating that honey badgers were actively avoiding the encounter with leopards. Enhle analysis suggests that this may be the result of interspecific predation or competition, that is, honey badgers avoid this potential predator by reducing their activities in places where leopards haunt.

Why do honey badgers dare to "cross" with large carnivores? Many images have proved that when avoidance is inevitable, honey badgers tend to fight rather than flee when facing large predators, which is also confirmed by expert scientific research in Kalahadi. The honey badger's main means of defending predators at close range are: making threatening sharp cries, raising hair, releasing irritating smell from the smelly glands in the anus and pouncing on predators. It is observed that this defense method successfully stopped the leopard twice, once for the lion and once for the hyena.

In the interaction with hyenas, Honey Badger first lay motionless on the grass and smelled the smell of three hyenas. When the hyena was only 2-3 meters away from it, the honey badger got up and rushed to the hyena, screaming and releasing the smell, and then ran away. Hyenas didn't try to chase the honey badger. Other scholars have also observed a similar situation in the interaction between honey badger, spotted hyena and brown hyena.

Experts also explained why the honey badger is so "horizontal": the thick and loose skin of the honey badger often makes it difficult for predators to bite firmly, which makes it turn around and bite the attacker at the same time.

In the expert's scientific investigation, there is an example to support this statement. It took a female leopard as long as 52 minutes to finally lock the throat of a 6 kg honey badger and kill it. In addition, scholars Rautenbach and worster also reported in 2003 that it takes 6 lions 15 minutes to kill a honey badger. It can be seen that the honey badger's skin gives it strong defense. If it were an ordinary animal, it would have been killed by lions and leopards.

The female leopard wanted to prey on the little honey badger, and was driven away by the female honey badger who heard the news.

Large reptiles and baboons occasionally kill honey badgers. As the old saying goes, a good swimmer drowns and a good rider falls, each for his own good. This sentence has also been fulfilled in honey badger. As we all know, honey badger likes to prey on all kinds of poisonous snakes, and even Rock Python, a big African country, sometimes inevitably becomes its food. Being good at catching snakes can be said to be one of the labels of honey badger. But once, the honey badger had a problem fighting with the python.

According to Preetorius 1989, a honey badger was defeated and killed after fighting with a python for more than 6 hours. Therefore, although snakes are often preyed by honey badgers in scientific research materials and news, Rock Python at least saved the face of snakes and became one of the few animals recorded to kill honey badgers.

Another giant reptile in Africa, the Nile crocodile, is also the largest reptile in Africa and the overlord in the river, but it doesn't give us face at all. According to photo news, Nile crocodile killed honey badger twice. One of them was last year, photographer Sheila grobbelaar photographed a Nile crocodile in Kruger National Park. Surprisingly, the crocodile has a honey badger in its mouth. Considering that the body is relatively fresh, it is likely that the crocodile killed the honey badger.

I saw the crocodile shaking his head and shaking the honey badger in order to tear open the body of the honey badger and swallow it. However, after an hour-long attempt, the crocodile still failed to shred its prey as expected. In desperation, the crocodile brought the honey badger to the shore, probably trying to tear the honey badger on land. This example proves once again that the honey badger's fur is tough and abnormal. You know, ordinary ungulates or small hippos can be torn by this trick.

As an opportunistic predator, honey badger sometimes attacks young baboons, but baboons are definitely one of the most important prey. Lu Yiji Fosati, an early primatologist, recorded an incident in which a honey badger was killed by an adult male Arabian baboon while trying to prey on a baby baboon.

Honey badger is by no means the only dead soul under the sword of baboons. According to the summary of scholar Cowlishaw 1994, baboons killed leopards four times in the counterattack of 1 1, so there is nothing wrong with honey badger's death.

The honey badger was not seriously hurt. Although there is no doubt that large carnivores such as lions and leopards have the ability to kill honey badgers, it is very rare to hunt honey badgers in general. Scholar Ailov wrote in 1984 that according to his investigation on the lion's diet in Kalahadi Antelope National Park during1July 970-1June 983, the lion only killed one honey badger, accounting for 1% of all the prey, and did not eat the honey badger.

It took eight sub-adult lions 20 minutes to kill an underage honey badger.

According to the academic report of scholar pienaar, the researchers investigated the feeding habits of various predators in Kruger National Park in South Africa in two periods: 1936-46 and 1954-66 respectively. Pienaar pointed out that only two of the lion's 25,846 prey were honey badgers, and the honey badger only appeared once in 4 133 prey of African wild dogs. Considering that honey badgers are not uncommon in this area, this predation ratio can be said to be extremely low.

In 2005, scholar Hayward and others summarized the data of leopard breeding in 25 protected areas in 13 countries. The results showed that the Jacobian index of leopard to honey badger was-1. Jacobian index can reflect the preference of predators for a prey to a great extent. -1 indicates that I have the greatest preference for this prey, that is, I like this prey very much.-1 indicates that it is the greatest negative choice for this animal, so it can be said that I will hardly choose to prey on it. So we can draw a conclusion that leopards rarely regard honey badgers as prey.

Honey badger fights African wild dogs

In fact, because predators rarely attack honey badgers, some large predators have even evolved a strategy to improve the survival rate of their cubs-simulating the fur color of honey badgers. 1976, Randall Eaton, an expert on cheetah behavior and ecology, put forward a phenomenon. From birth to two and a half months old, cheetahs have been imitating the fur color of honey badgers, that is, like honey badgers, the upper part of their trunks is silver-gray or almost white, and the lower part is black. He thinks this is the imitation of honey badger by young cheetahs.

Lions, leopards and hyenas, the main predators of cheetah cubs, locate their prey visually, so from a distance, predators can easily mistake cheetah cubs for honey badgers, which is likely to increase the survival rate of cheetah cubs at this stage.

Randall found that when the baby cheetah was over two and a half months old, it lost this protective color and gradually became an adult cheetah. In this regard, Randall believes that as the young cheetah grows up slowly, its body shape may no longer be suitable for continuing to imitate the honey badger, and it may be noticed by predators, and the physical difference between the two will not play a confusing role. Randall also pointed out that when the baby cheetah is over two and a half months old, it has a certain speed to escape the attack of predators. Other scholars have also recorded some examples of three to six-month-old cubs successfully escaping from predation.

Little cheetah's imitation of honey badger

To sum up, honey badger is an unattainable target for large predators because of its thick and tough loose skin, sharp claws, smelly glands that can secrete odor and fierce fighting style. In addition, the honey badger itself is very small, and there is not much meat to speak of. Even if it succeeds, it will not benefit much. Even their main predators, lions and leopards, will not regard it as a regular prey.

As for several other animals that have killed honey badgers-jackals, wild dogs, crocodiles, pythons and baboons, jackals and wild dogs only occasionally catch small honey badgers. Crocodiles and honey badgers have a low chance of encountering, while pythons and baboons are attacked by honey badgers and then killed. So honey badger is not a serious enemy except human beings.