Honey badger
Amazing fact
A honey badger has strong forefeet with large claws that help it grasp prey.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
A honey badger has strong forefeet with large claws that help it grasp prey.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Honey badger
- Scientific name
- Mellivora capensis
- Japanese name
- ラーテル
- Group
- Land mammals
- Class
- Mammalia
- Order
- Carnivora
- Family
- Mustelidae
- Genus
- Mellivora
It lives across a wide area, from Africa south of the Sahara to the Arabian Peninsula and India.
The lower half of its body is black, and its back is grey or white. Its very thick, loose skin keeps predators from getting a firm grip on it.
It eats eggs, rodents, snakes, birds and frogs. It also raids beehives to eat the bee larvae and honey.
How the Honey badger lives
It moves around each day in search of food. Its diet changes with the seasonal abundance of prey. It marks near its burrow with urine or scent.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- 60–70 cm
- Weight
- 8–12 kg
- Active
- By day and by night
Where the Honey badger has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- ラーテル
- 简体中文
- 蜜獾
- 繁體中文
- 蜜獾
- 한국어
- 라텔
- Español
- Ratel
- Français
- Ratel
- Deutsch
- Honigdachs
- Português (Brasil)
- Ratel
- Italiano
- Tasso del miele
- हिन्दी
- बिज्जू
- العربية
- غرير العسل
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Ratel
- Tiếng Việt
- Lửng mật
- Русский
- Медоед
- Türkçe
- Bal porsuğu
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Mellivora capensisChecked: 2026-11-03
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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