Fri, 24 Jan 2025 01:00:01 GMT

Oh hey... 𝙒𝑯𝘼𝑻'𝑺 𝑻𝙃𝑨𝙏 𝙒𝑬𝘼𝑺𝙀𝑳 𝑾𝙀𝑫𝙉𝑬𝙎𝑫𝘼𝒀?!

Introducing the Honey Badger or Ratel, aka 𝑴𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒂 𝒄𝒂𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒔! The mighty mustelid of myth, meme, and legend. Where to even begin?

"Honey badgers are intelligent because they have to be. In the wild they will kill and eat up to 60 different species of animal with their strong claws, from venomous cobras to bee larvae, and in order to have a diet with this impressive range, honey badgers not only need to have problem-solving skills, they have to be some of the most adaptable creatures in the animal kingdom in the way they solve problems. The honey badger regularly needs to be able to dig, climb, squeeze themselves in and out of tight spots with a flattened body and solve new puzzles in order to survive — they have even been observed using tools to get what they want, which is a hallmark of uniquely intelligent animals like primates.

Honey badgers often tangle with venomous snakes, but one misconception is that honey badgers are naturally immune to venom. While it's true that the honey badger, a member of the weasel family, eats a lot of venomous animals, their immunity needs to be developed over time. How honey badgers acquire this immunity is not well studied or understood, but mother honey badgers spend a long time raising each pup (14-18 months), and as the honey badger baby grows, its mom slowly introduces it to venomous animals, starting with the mildest scorpion and moving up the venom ladder until the youngster is eating cobras and puff adders.

Scientists have studied why the honey badger is so tolerant to snake venom because their tolerance might give us some keys to creating more effective antivenoms to treat people who have been bitten by snakes. It seems the honey badger and its ancestors built up a resistance to these compounds on a molecular level over generations. For instance, one neurotoxin found in cobra venom fits into a special receptor in you or I that would really mess up our day — it would basically shut down our respiratory muscles. In a honey badger, this receptor has mutated to the point that the neurotoxins just can't fit into that receptor anymore — like a round peg in a square hole."

https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/honey-badger.htm

• Honey Badgers are short and stocky, and have several adaptations for fighting like their skin is extremely loose which lets the animal still move even if the prey/predator is biting its fur.

• Their neck is reinforced mostly for ratel-on-ratel fighting and bee stings, porcupine quills, arrows, and bites from bigger predators don’t usually pierce their

• A study in South Africa found that Honey Badgers have a very diverse diet. They eat at least 59 species! Right from bee larvae to 3 metre long pythons.

• Honey Badgers are a species that is known for incredible problem solving skills and tool use.

• Honey Badgers have a reversible anal pouch. That means it can be pushed out of the anus. It smells so bad that it is believed they use it to tranquilize bees when they’re looking for honey.

https://blog.animalogic.ca/animals/honeybadgers

"Honey Badger don't care" meme lore video. Content warning for some language and predator/prey situations (blood)

https://youtu.be/4r7wHMg5Yjg