The flat-headed honey badger has many natural enemies, but none of them has serious harm to them. It is really not easy to provoke.

If you want to say that there are many creatures living on a continent, which is a paradise and home for animals, then Africa must be ranked first. As one of the origins of human civilization, Africa has too many incredible stories and rumors, such as the brutal hyena, the powerful lion, the rushing wildebeest, the leisurely giraffe and the charming flamingo; There are even some primitive tribes. The rich culture of forms the big family of Africa . There are still quite a few rumors in the African animal kingdom, among which the surprising rumors may belong to a small animal .

African honey badger

This animal is small, usually only a few dozen catties. Compared with the lions, hyenas, snakes, and crocodiles in Africa, this kind of unremarkable little guy makes it difficult. Few animals feel a headache. This is Africa’s honey badger . Like its name, honey is an absolute attraction to honey badgers, and it is worth any price to be able to take a bite.

Flathead honey badger

The honey badger name has the word badger, but it is real mustelidae _strong11 These animals are generally small in size. Like many weasels, the honey badger has its own scent gland . Rough fur can resist many attacks. Even in the face of a swarm of bees, bees are helpless against honey badgers .

For honey badgers, grasslands are the main habitat, and some live in drier places such as rainforests and even deserts, and are distributed throughout Africa. In addition to honey and bee pupae are the main food sources of honey badgers, some small insects are also their food sources. Those who come will not refuse, including rotten meat, berries, nuts, Even hard dishes like vipers are a delicacy for honey badgers .

Flathead eats snakes

Honey badgers are usually burrowing, sharp and hard claws , in addition to being able to preyIt can also help the honey badger to make holes in the thick soil , the flat body shape can carry out good activities in the cave. The honey badger has a wide range of activities, and the range of activities of between races is not completely divided into areas, but will overlap each other .

This is mainly due to the way of survival of honey badgers. Generally speaking, a honey badger family will have and multiple females , male honey badgers will mate with multiple female honey badgers A female only leads one cub. The young developmental honey badger needs to rely on the feeding of adult females. It takes about a year and a half for the juvenile honey badger to be independent. This makes females need to go out hunting frequently Come to feed the baby honey badger .

The honey badger cub was captured by a lioness

Another interesting point is that although the honey badger can obtain honey with its strong defense ability, it is in the life of the honey badger, and Other animals also have a relationship similar to "cooperation" . When looking for a food source of honey, honey badgers can’t match the sense organs of some birds, while black-throated honeybird can accurately find the nests of bees.At this time, it will and make a call to attract the attention of the honey badger destroys the hive and the black-throated honeybird eating honey together .

black-throated honeybird

Honey badger has gray hair on the back, flat head, slender body, and ears close to the sides of the head. looks like the entire face It is relatively flat, and the title of "Flat Head Brother" is derived from this .

The natural enemy of the honey badger

Animals living in Africa face threats from many places. For animals, it is natural to hunt and be hunted. Lions, cheetahs, hyenas, and crocodiles are bullies on the African grasslands. firmly stabilizes the balance of the entire food chain .

Big cats usually occupy the top of the food chain in Africa. Small opponents like honey badgers are not even small, but can only be described as petite. Large cats such as lions, usually have a bite force of 400 kg , The pointed canine teeth can easily penetrate the skull and carotid arteries of the prey. . For these top predators, eating a honey badger is naturally not a big problem. . It can be said that in the African grasslands, honeypots have too many natural enemies .

Good mouth

In addition to lions, there are cheetahs, cheetah In most cases, people’s perception of zebras captures these animals such as antelopes and others. Honey badger, a small animal that seems to have no meat, is actually one of the cheetah’s menu choices, but the energy consumed by cheetah hunting is very large. Most of the body of the honey badger is hair, and the flat and long body can be compared. easily slipped from the cheetah’s mouth and ran back into the cave .

and hyena this kind of "scumbag" predator, hyenas usually prey on group out _span _span strong _span _strong span1 _strongAfter discovering the prey, it will surround the prey and attack the prey one by one. At the same time, it will also find a way to distract the prey .

The honey badger is small and has a risk of being preyed. The African grasslands are also full of dangers everywhere, with murderous opportunities , but the number of honey badgers has remained stable. The honey badger is called "Plathead Brother" not only because its head looks flat. The word "Brother" in the nickname shows from another aspect that this creature is not easy to provoke . Even though honey badgers have many natural enemies, none of them can cause serious harm to them.

indifferent and cool

When facing the danger of predators, most animals often choose to run away, but honey badgers are different. Compared with animals such as antelopes and wildebeests, which have better escape ability, the honey badger runs at only about 13 kilometers per hour. The end of the run is often head-on conflict .

In the event of a conflict, the honey badger will directly choose to attack. The honey badger is not entirely a weak animal. The feet have with long and hard claws about 5 cm long. ; although they don’t have the fangs of a lion and cheetah, the teeth of the honey badger are still the same. Sharp . The thick fur can resist the bite from predators to a certain extent. The skin of honey badger can reach 5 cm in the thickest part ,And the fur of is not completely connected to the skin , which makes the honey badger feel a lot softer; the flat body can easily to avoid attacks , The flexible posture can also make the honey badger twist around and bite the predator .

The claws of the honey badger

The honey badger does not have a huge body, and naturally it will not bite the attacker's head or body in the offensive choices. Thanks to its small body, honey badger will choose to attack the fragile parts of the animal’s genitals, mouth, and nose .

Don’t underestimate its small body. Honey badgers also have sharp teeth and powerful jaws. Even if they are thick shelled creatures like tortoises, honey badgers can and crush the shell. span4span to obtain food; in the description of the local indigenous people, it is difficult to pierce the honey badger body even with bows and spears, which makes hunting honey badgers a very difficult activity .

Honey badger: the tortoise can’t escape

Honey badger itself, as a predator, is not afraid of hunting animals like snakes. When faced with poisonous snakes, its approach is also very simple. , Just go up and bite. Due to its thick fur, venomous snakes can hardly bite the honey badger and inject the venom . The venom of poisonous snakes is fatal to almost any animal, but the honey badger is not afraid. Even if it is bitten and poisoned, the honey badger will not die. Instead, it will fall asleep and continue to wake up. Eating.

For the resistance of snake venom, the researchers found that the venom resistance in the honey badger , the snake's neurotoxin _ strong8 , and the alkaloids will not be in the honey badger. The blood reacts , which is equivalent to the human immune system, which fundamentally resists the damage of snake venom.

Blood comes with anti-toxin buff

Honey badger is not big or small, if predator chooses it, it will definitely fight with it for a long time before it can eat it. There are exact records showing that is not difficult to prey on such animals .Zoologists have discovered in the observation of honey badgers that in hunting honey badgers, the lion fought overnight for 6 hours , but still did not subdue the honey badger, and finally the flathead brother Yaoyao escaped from the lion's mouth.

Honey badger and cheetah

Acute grumpy bad temper

Honey badger's irritable temper is also one of the reasons for its brutality, sense of 4 , Any animal that walks into the territory of the Honey Badger will startle it. Relying on its thick skin and rich fur, the honey badger will immediately attack, launches an attack on the offender .

The metabolism of the honey badger is also very fast, which causes it to have a very high energy demand None of them resists. If you encounter animals competing for food, the honey badger will definitely go up to snatch .

Honey badger regards any possible animal as a threat, neurotic is also a feature of it. If you want to survive on the African grasslands, you must always beware of any potential dangers. There is a record of honey badger attacking a lion in an animal adoption facility in Africa, and the reason is only . The lion looked at the honey badger more than , which made honey irritable. The badger became full of aggressiveness. opened the soil under the isolation fence overnight and fought with the lion , which also gave the honey badger the label 1. Basically, any animal and honey badger will be the target of its attack if they stare at each other for too long.

I am a professional shoveling soil

Honey badger has a lot of cleverness besides fighting. A rehabilitation center in South Africa once adopted a honey badger. The cleaning staff left a broom in it after cleaning up the honey badger’s dwelling. immediately searched for food, and finally the breeder found this "jailbreak" little guy in the kitchen.There is also the reason why the honey badger is aggressive because of the special structure of its eyes. The inside of the eyes is concave mirror structure , which makes the honey badger see objects much smaller than actual, in its eyes There is almost no concept of body size equivalence .

First-class running skills

In most reports, the honey badger is described as a . In fact, for the honey badger , In order to survive, honey badgers will not deliberately seek to take the initiative to fight. Only when they feel dangerous will they take the initiative to attack , it is precisely because has a grumpy temper, a strong metabolism, and a strong demand for food, honey badgers will appear like this Fighting .

Although the honey badger is fierce and unusual, it is not invincible. In the face of large carnivores, it may not be able to escape the fate of being eaten. 's superior resistance to snake venom is also used as a metabolic mechanism that is different from other animals in long-term evolution ,Snake venom If accumulates too much , honey badger will still die because of poisoning . For this kind of smelly and hard guy, the lions and cheetahs spend a lot of effort to eat this bit of meat. It is not cost-effective , not as good as the fleshy herbivores.

The lion preys on the honey badger

Conclusion

In order to survive on the African continent, this small animal exhausted its efforts to fight against this dangerous world. Rather than saying that no animal can cause serious harm to the honey badger, it is better to say that it is striving for it on its own. will never compromise at any time . The law of the jungle where the weak and the strong eats the strong is vividly reflected here. It has no choice. can only take the initiative to prevent itself from being a disadvantage. A sense of power has been added to the African grasslands.