Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Mel­livora capen­sis, the honey bad­ger or ratel, has an ex­pan­sive ge­o­graphic range, span­ning most of sub-Sa­ha­ran Africa as well as the Ara­bian penin­sula (in­clud­ing por­tions of Is­rael, Jor­dan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Ara­bia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Oman, Yemen, and the United Arab Emi­rates), the In­dian penin­sula (in­clud­ing most of India as well as por­tions of Nepal and Pak­istan), and parts of the west­ern Asian na­tions of Turk­menistan, Uzbek­istan, Kaza­khstan, and Afghanistan. It is not his­tor­i­cally found in the in­cred­i­bly dry areas of the Sa­hara Desert nor is it found along the coast of the Mediter­ranean. (Begg, et al., 2008; Gupta, et al., 2012)

• Biogeographic Regions
• palearctic
  • native
• ethiopian
  • native

Habi­tat

Honey bad­gers are ter­res­trial an­i­mals that in­habit a wide va­ri­ety of habi­tats, in­clud­ing trop­i­cal and sub­trop­i­cal green forests, thorn forests, open wood­lands, ri­par­ian forests or grass­lands, arid steppes, rocky hills, and deserts. Honey bad­gers oc­cupy el­e­va­tions rang­ing from sea level to 4,050 me­ters. They typ­i­cally do not live in the dri­est por­tions of the Sa­hara Desert or in the chap­ar­ral bio­mes around the Mediter­ranean. They re­quire habi­tats with bur­rows, rock crevices, or other places in which they can shel­ter. (Begg, et al., 2008; Gupta, et al., 2012; Ro­se­vear, 1974; Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• desert or dune
• savanna or grassland
• forest
• rainforest
• scrub forest
• mountains

• Other Habitat Features
• riparian

• Range elevation

  0 to 4050 m

  0.00 to 13287.40 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Honey bad­gers are large mustelids, with a body length of 60 to 70 cm and a mass rang­ing from 8 to 12 kg. Their size varies across their ge­o­graphic range, with mea­sure­ments taken on honey bad­gers in Africa show­ing them to be slightly larger than in­di­vid­u­als from Asian pop­u­la­tions. This species ex­hibits sex­ual di­mor­phism, with the males being larger than the fe­males. Data from in­di­vid­u­als in the Kala­hari showed adult males to be about one third larger than adult fe­males. Older adult males also have an ob­vi­ous scarred area on their back (they are re­ferred to as "scar­backs") that is prob­a­bly the re­sult of mul­ti­ple bite wounds. This species is char­ac­ter­ized by hav­ing a stocky body, about 25 cm high at the shoul­der, with a large skull, small eyes, and a mus­cu­lar neck and shoul­ders. Though the color varies slightly with sub­species (see Other Com­ments below), in gen­eral the lower (ven­tral) half of the body is a dark black, with an upper man­tle that is ei­ther grey or bright white. The lighter col­or­ing ex­tends the en­tire length of the body, stop­ping at the base of the tail. The forefeet are strong and wide, with large claws that are use­ful for grasp­ing prey and run­ning. In con­trast, the hind feet are small with short claws. Honey bad­gers have very thick, loose skin which pre­vents a preda­tor from get­ting a firm grasp on them and en­ables thm to eas­ily twist and bite the at­tacker. (Begg, et al., 2003a; Ro­se­vear, 1974; Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003; Ver­wey, et al., 2004)

Lit­tle data are avail­able for ju­ve­nile honey bad­gers. How­ever, a re­port of a cap­tive-born honey bad­ger de­scribed it as being hair­less and weigh­ing 0.23 kg at 2 days of age. By the age of 3 months, the ju­ve­nile had a fully de­vel­oped coat with a color pat­tern like that of an adult. (Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male larger

• Range mass

  8 to 12 kg

  17.62 to 26.43 lb

• Range length

  60 to 70 cm

  23.62 to 27.56 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Re­pro­duc­tion in honey bad­gers is gen­er­ally not well stud­ied, ex­cept for a 42 month-long study in the Kgala­gadi Trans­fron­tier Na­tional Park in south­ern Africa. In this area, honey bad­gers mate through­out the year, though mat­ing ac­tiv­ity is slightly more com­mon dur­ing the hot dry sea­son, from Sep­tem­ber to De­cem­ber. Much of the re­cent lit­er­a­ture on the species de­scribes honey bad­gers as soli­tary an­i­mals, com­ing to­gether only briefly for mat­ing. How­ever, some older re­ports, such as the ref­er­ence to a 1910 paper by Drake-Brock­man in Van­der­haar & Hwang, 2003, in­di­cate that males and fe­males often live in pairs. The scent-mark­ing be­hav­ior of honey bad­gers ap­pears to play an im­por­tant role in find­ing a mate. There are typ­i­cally more males avail­able to mate than there are re­cep­tive fe­males, due to the long pe­riod of time the off­spring are de­pen­dent on their mother, 12 to 16 months. This means that adult male honey bad­gers are com­pet­ing with each other for ac­cess to fe­males. Male honey bad­gers that are more dom­i­nant will typ­i­cally be heav­ier and have larger testes. How­ever, this dom­i­nance does not guar­an­tee mat­ing suc­cess. In fact, a study of the ge­netic mark­ers pos­sessed by eight males and eight fe­males with over­lap­ping ranges, and the 10 off­spring of those fe­males showed that the dom­i­nant male fa­thered only half of the cubs. Since mat­ing oc­curs in a bur­row, very few ob­ser­va­tions of the process have been made. (Begg, et al., 2003b; Begg, et al., 2005a; Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003; Ver­wey, et al., 2004)

• Mating System
• polygynous
• polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Fe­male honey bad­gers are in es­trous for a min­i­mum of two weeks, when mat­ing oc­curs. Mat­ing is asyn­chro­nous, oc­cur­ring at any point in the year, but re­search in south­ern Africa sug­gests most breed­ing oc­curs from Sep­tem­ber to De­cem­ber. The ges­ta­tion pe­riod ranges from 50 to 70 days. Lit­ters are re­ported to con­sist of one to two off­spring, but ob­ser­va­tions made in south­ern Africa sug­gest that honey bad­gers there raise only a sin­gle young at a time. The young are born in a bur­row and re­main there until they are about 3 months old and are weaned. Con­se­quently, lit­tle in­for­ma­tion is avail­able about the size of new­borns; how­ever, one cap­tive-born cub was re­ported to weigh 0.23 kg at 2 days old. Fe­male honey bad­gers care for their young until they are one to two years old. Fe­male honey bad­gers reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity sig­nif­i­cantly faster than males, tak­ing only 12 to 16 months, where males take two to three years. (Begg, et al., 2005a; Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003; Ver­wey, et al., 2004)

Some lit­er­a­ture sources re­port that honey bad­ger re­pro­duc­tion can in­volve de­layed im­plan­ta­tion, as oc­curs with some other mustelid species. The re­pro­duc­tive bi­ol­ogy of the species has not been well stud­ied across its ge­o­graphic range, but data col­lected in the south­ern Kala­hari does not sug­gest that de­layed im­plan­ta­tion oc­curs in that pop­u­la­tion. (Begg, et al., 2005a)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• year-round breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• viviparous
• delayed implantation

• Breeding interval

  Honey badgers breed no more than once every 14 to 24 months.

• Breeding season

  In southern Africa breeding occurs year-round, but is more common from September to December.

• Range number of offspring

  1 to 2

• Average number of offspring

  1

• Average number of offspring

  2

  AnAge

• Range gestation period

  50 to 70 days

• Range weaning age

  2 to 3 months

• Range time to independence

  12 to 22 months

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  1 to 1.3 years

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  2 to 3 years

Only fe­male honey bad­gers are in­volved in the care of off­spring, which are born blind and hair­less. For the first 3 months, honey bad­ger cubs re­main in the den, with the mother re­turn­ing to nurse. The mother will pe­ri­od­i­cally (av­er­age of every 3 days) move her cub to a new den, car­ry­ing it with her mouth. When the cub is two to three months old, the mother honey bad­ger will begin to bring prey items back to the den. Once the cub be­gins to ac­com­pany its mother to for­age, at around 3 months of age, the pair will move to a dif­fer­ent bur­row each night. The cub will re­main with its mother for 12 to 16 months, with the mother pro­vid­ing all of the food for the first 10 to 12 months. (Begg, et al., 2005b; Begg, et al., 2005a; Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003)

Both male and fe­male honey bad­ger cubs be­come in­de­pen­dent at an av­er­age age of 14 months. How­ever, fe­males have reached their adult size at this age, and pre­sum­ably are sex­u­ally ma­ture, and they im­me­di­ately dis­perse away from their mother's home range. Males, on the other hand, con­tinue to grow after reach­ing the age of in­de­pen­dence, sug­gest­ing that they have not yet reached sex­ual ma­tu­rity. Male cubs may re­main in or near to their mother's home range for a few months after they be­come in­de­pen­dent. (Begg, et al., 2005b; Begg, et al., 2005a)

• Parental Investment
• altricial
• female parental care
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• post-independence association with parents

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Honey bad­gers in the wild tend to live be­tween 7 and 8 years due to pre­da­tion and risk of in­jury. In con­trast, honey bad­gers bred in cap­tiv­ity live sig­nif­i­cantly longer, with a max­i­mum lifes­pan of 26 years. (Begg, et al., 2005a; Begg, et al., 2008; Ro­se­vear, 1974)

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  7 to 8 years

• Typical lifespan
  Status: captivity

  24 to 26 years

Be­hav­ior

Honey bad­gers are soli­tary and no­madic. They oc­cupy a large range, mov­ing around daily to for­age. Fe­male honey bad­gers tend to travel shorter dis­tances per day, around 10 km, while males may for­age for as much as 27 km per day. Males have been known to meet up with other adult-sized honey bad­gers after for­ag­ing and ex­change grunts while sniff­ing each other and rolling around in the sand. Honey bad­gers have been known to defe­cate in holes and mark with their urine or anal scent glands to in­di­cate to other an­i­mals that their bur­row is nearby. Honey bad­gers are no­to­ri­ously ag­gres­sive an­i­mals. Males in par­tic­u­lar de­fend mates with in­cred­i­ble fe­roc­ity if threat­ened. Male in­ter­ac­tions be­come ag­gres­sive if one of the males at­tempts to in­trude into the marked bur­rows, they begin a dom­i­nance dance to de­ter­mine who will stay. (Ro­se­vear, 1974; Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003)

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• diurnal
• nocturnal
• crepuscular
• motile
• sedentary
• solitary
• dominance hierarchies

Home Range

In the south­ern Kala­hari re­gion, adult male honey bad­gers have an av­er­age home range of 541 sq km, while adult fe­males have a smaller av­er­age home range of 126 sq km. Young males (in­de­pen­dent but not yet sex­u­ally ma­ture) have home ranges av­er­ag­ing 151 sq km. These home ranges are not ex­clu­sive, but in­stead over­lap ex­ten­sively. Adult males may have over­lap­ping home ranges, as do adult fe­males. The home range of a dom­i­nant adult male may over­lap the ranges of as many as 13 fe­males. Young males may have home ranges that over­lap en­tirely with the home range of an adult male. De­spite the over­lap­ping home ranges of young males, adult males, and adult fe­males, they don't ex­hibit ter­ri­to­ri­al­ity. (Begg, et al., 2005b)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Honey bad­gers com­mu­ni­cate mainly through vo­cal­iza­tions. Adults emit loud grat­ing noises, com­pa­ra­ble to a high-pitched bark. Young squeal and whine when in dis­tress to gather the at­ten­tion of a par­ent. When faced with com­pet­ing males, a male honey bad­ger will begin a rit­u­al­ized dance con­sist­ing of var­i­ous whole-body ro­ta­tions. The dom­i­nant male will be the one mov­ing the most while the sub­or­di­nate is mostly im­mo­bile. Honey bad­gers mark their ter­ri­tory with urine or scent glands lo­cated in the anus. (Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic

• Other Communication Modes
• scent marks

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Honey bad­gers are op­por­tunis­tic for­agers; the com­po­si­tion of the diet varies with sea­sonal changes in prey abun­dance. They have a pri­mar­ily car­niv­o­rous diet, fre­quently din­ing on eggs, small ro­dents, snakes, birds, and frogs. While the ma­jor­ity of the diet is car­niv­o­rous, honey bad­gers also eat fruit, roots, and bulbs. Bee hives are preyed upon be­cause the honey bad­ger also likes to de­vour the bee lar­vae and honey in­side. They have been known to turn to car­rion as a food source if other nour­ish­ment is scarce. (Begg, et al., 2008; Ro­se­vear, 1974)

An ex­ten­sive study of honey bad­gers in the south­ern Kala­hari found that, de­spite the size dif­fer­ence be­tween male and fe­male honey bad­gers, their for­ag­ing pat­terns and for­ag­ing suc­cess were re­mark­ably com­pa­ra­ble. They were ob­served cap­tur­ing prey rang­ing in size from 2 to 2000 g. The types of prey eaten by the honey bad­gers var­ied sea­son­ally, with small mam­mals mak­ing up most of the diet (80%) dur­ing the sea­son of high­est small mam­mal abun­dance (Sep­tem­ber to De­cem­ber). Large snakes made up a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the diet (58%) dur­ing the hot-wet sea­son (Jan­u­ary to April). Over­all, adult male honey bad­gers con­sumed an av­er­age of 1.3 kg of food per day while fe­males con­sumed an av­er­age of 0.9 kg per day. (Begg, et al., 2005b)

Honey bad­gers in the Kgala­gadi Trans­fron­tier Na­tional Park have been ob­served con­sum­ing the fol­low­ing prey species: spring­hares (Pedetes capen­sis), Brant's ger­bils (Ger­bil­lis­cus brantsii), hairy-footed ger­bils (Ger­bil­lu­rus paeba), African wild cats (Felis ly­bica), Cape foxes (Vulpes chama), scrub hares (Lepus sax­atilis), yel­low mon­gooses (Cyn­ic­tis peni­cil­lata), striped mice (Rhab­domys pumilio), striped pole­cats (Ictonyx stria­tus), bat-eared foxes (Oto­cyon mega­lo­tis), suri­cates (Suri­cata suri­catta>>), Brant's whistling rats (Parato­mys brantsii), bushveld ele­phant shews (Ele­phan­tu­lus intufi), short-tailed ger­bils (Desmod­il­lus au­ric­u­laris), pygmy mice (Mus min­u­toides), pouched mice (Sac­cos­to­mus campestris), Woos­nam's desert rats (Zelo­to­mys woos­nami), mole snakes (Pseudaspis cana), puff adders (Bitis ari­en­tans), Cape co­bras (Naja nivea), horned adders (Bitis cau­dalis), com­mon bark­ing geckos (Pteno­pus gar­ru­lous), sand snakes (Psam­mophis), giant ground geckos (Chon­dro­dacty­lus an­gulifer), Kala­hari tree skinks (Tra­chylepis oc­ci­den­talis), Bibron's stilet­tos (Atrac­taspis bibronii), bi­col­ored quill snouted snakes (Xeno­cala­mus bi­color bi­color), Cape geckos (Chon­dro­dacty­lus bibronii), African rock pythons (Python na­tal­en­sis), striped sand­veld lizards (Nu­cras tes­sel­lata tes­sel­lata), ground aga­mas (Agama ac­uleate), black and yel­low sand lizards (He­liobo­lus lugubris), pale chant­ing goshawks (Me­lierax canorus), black ko­rhaans (Afro­tis afra), Na­maqua sand­grouse (Pte­ro­cles na­maqua), spot­ted eagle owls (Bubo africanus), ant eat­ing chat (Myrme­co­ci­chla formi­civora), barn owls (Tyto alba), com­mon quails (Co­turnix co­turnix), scaly feath­ered finches (Sporopines squam­ifrons), so­cial weavers (Phile­tairus so­cius), yel­low scor­pi­ons (Opistoph­thal­mus wahlbergii), ter­mites (Hodoter­mes mossam­bi­cus), bee­tles (Melolon­thi­nae), yel­low scor­pi­ons (Parabuthus raudus), black scor­pi­ons (Opistoph­thal­mus car­i­na­tus), black/brown scor­pi­ons (Parabuthus gran­u­la­tus or Parabuthus kala­har­i­cus), lo­custs (Or­thoptera), and soli­tary bee lar­vae (Parafi­delia frie­sei). There were also ob­ser­va­tions of adult honey bad­gers can­ni­bal­iz­ing honey bad­ger cubs. (Begg, et al., 2003a)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • eats terrestrial vertebrates

• Animal Foods
• birds
• mammals
• amphibians
• reptiles
• eggs
• carrion
• insects
• terrestrial non-insect arthropods

• Plant Foods
• roots and tubers
• fruit

Pre­da­tion

Being a car­niv­o­rous species, honey bad­gers don't have an ex­ten­sive list of preda­tors. Lions and leop­ards tend to kill only older and weaker honey bad­gers, as the thick, loose skin makes younger bad­gers dif­fi­cult to grasp. The dis­tinc­tive col­or­ing of honey bad­gers, a black body with a white man­tle, mim­ics that of a baby chee­tah, mak­ing any preda­tors less likely to at­tack. The en­larged anal glands can also pro­duce a foul-smelling liq­uid when they are threat­ened. This is typ­i­cally ac­com­pa­nied by a threat dis­play where the honey bad­ger's hair stands on end, the tail is held erect, a loud "rat­tling" sound is made. Honey bad­gers also fre­quently charge at­tack­ers. (Begg, et al., 2003b; Bright, 2000; Eaton, 1976; Nowak, 1991)

• Anti-predator Adaptations
• mimic
• aposematic

• Known Predators

  • lions (Panthera leo)
  • leopards (Panthera pardus)
  • spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta)

Ecosys­tem Roles

As op­por­tunis­tic preda­tors, honey bad­gers prey on a wide va­ri­ety of other or­gan­isms in the ecosys­tem. Al­though a sup­posed sym­bi­otic re­la­tion­ship with greater hon­eyguides (In­di­ca­tor in­di­ca­tor) is often de­scribed in the lit­er­a­ture and pop­u­lar media (in which the bird guides the honey bad­ger to a bee­hive and is re­warded by get­ting to eat the left­overs after the honey bad­ger has eaten its fill), there is no em­pir­i­cal ev­i­dence to sup­port the ex­is­tence of this re­la­tion­ship - it has not been ob­served to occur in the wild. Older honey bad­gers that are less ca­pa­ble of de­fend­ing them­selves be­come prey for large preda­tors such as lions, spot­ted hyae­nas, and leop­ards. (Begg, et al., 2003b; Ro­se­vear, 1974; Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Honey bad­gers are very ef­fi­cient at con­trol­ling ro­dent and in­sect pop­u­la­tions, ef­fec­tively re­duc­ing some pest-borne dis­eases. Api­cul­tur­ists find them par­tic­u­larly use­ful, as they act as honey guides to scout out po­ten­tial lo­ca­tions for bee hives. Their or­gans, skin, and other parts were seen as a sym­bol of fe­ro­cious­ness and tenac­ity, so hu­mans in­cor­po­rated them into tra­di­tional med­i­cine. (Begg, et al., 2008; Bright, 2000; Nowak, 1991)

• Positive Impacts
• body parts are source of valuable material
• source of medicine or drug
• controls pest population

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Honey bad­gers can be quite fierce if star­tled by a human, thus mak­ing them a dan­ger. They have been known to carry ra­bies, which poses a health prob­lem for the sur­round­ing hu­mans and wildlife. They ac­count for 26% of the dam­age done to com­mer­cial bee hives by break­ing into the hives and eat­ing the lar­vae, which re­sults in a mon­e­tary loss for the bee­keep­ers. Honey bad­gers have also been known to stray onto farm­land and at­tack live­stock. (Begg, et al., 2008; Bright, 2000; Nowak, 1991; Zhang, et al., 2009)

• Negative Impacts
• injures humans
  • bites or stings
• causes or carries domestic animal disease

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Honey bad­gers are not com­mon any­where in their range, al­though den­si­ties vary from one re­gion to an­other. The over­all pop­u­la­tion shows a de­creas­ing trend, de­spite the fact that the species is pro­tected in some of the coun­tries that it in­hab­its. The IUCN Red List iden­ti­fies the species as "Least Con­cern" be­cause, al­though the pop­u­la­tion is de­clin­ing, the species has a broad ge­o­graphic range and is not a di­etary spe­cial­ist. The Botswanan pop­u­la­tion is in­cluded on CITES Ap­pen­dix III. The largest threat to honey bad­gers is prob­a­bly human ac­tiv­ity. In­di­vid­u­als are often killed, ei­ther in­ten­tion­ally or un­in­ten­tion­ally with traps and poi­son baits by farm­ers and api­cul­tur­ists try­ing to re­duce preda­tor pop­u­la­tion, and oth­ers are sub­ject to hunt­ing for tra­di­tional med­i­c­i­nal reme­dies. Honey bad­gers have large home ranges, so track­ing and en­sur­ing con­ser­va­tion for them is ex­ceed­ingly dif­fi­cult. (Begg and Begg, 2002; Begg, et al., 2008)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  Appendix III

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Other Com­ments

The thick skin of honey bad­gers is said to be im­per­vi­ous to bee stings and snake fangs. While their skin may offer them some pro­tec­tion from bees, they are cer­tainly not im­mune to the ef­fects of bee stings as honey bad­gers have oc­ca­sion­ally been caught in api­ary traps and have sub­se­quently died as a re­sult of nu­mer­ous bee stings. Honey bad­gers are known to eat a va­ri­ety of ven­omous snakes, which sug­gests that they have some adap­ta­tions for this diet. Some car­niv­o­rous mam­mals are known to ex­hibit a re­sis­tance to the ef­fects of snake venom, in­clud­ing species of opos­sum (Didel­phi­dae), hedge­hogs (Eri­nace­diae), mon­goose (Her­pesti­dae), skunks (Mephi­ti­dae>>), and sev­eral mustelids (Mustel­idae). It is likely that the honey bad­ger also has re­sis­tance to snake venom, al­though the exact phys­i­o­log­i­cal mech­a­nism has not been demon­strated in honey bad­gers. For other venom re­sis­tant mam­mals, the typ­i­cal mech­a­nisms are ei­ther fac­tors in the blood that in­ac­ti­vate the venom tox­ins, or that the re­sis­tant mam­mal has evolved slight changes in the mol­e­cules that the snake venom tar­gets, mak­ing those mol­e­cules less sus­cep­ti­ble to the dam­ag­ing ef­fects of the venom. (Begg and Begg, 2002; Jansa and Voss, 2011; Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003; Voss and Jansa, 2012)

There are cur­rently 12 rec­og­nized sub­species of Mel­livora capen­sis, dif­fer­ing in lo­ca­tion and the coat col­oration: the Cape ratel (M.c. capen­sis), Ethiopian ratel (M.c. abyssinica), Turk­men­ian ratel (M.c. buech­neri), Lake Chad ratel (M.c. con­cisa), black ratel (M.c. cot­toni), Nepalese ratel (M.c. in­au­rita), In­dian ratel (M.c. in­dica), white-backed ratel (M.c. leu­conota), Kenyan ratel (M.c. maxwelli), Ara­bian ratel (M.c. pumilio), speck­led ratel (M.c. sig­nata), and the Per­sian ratel (M.c. wilsoni). ("Mel­livora capen­sis (Schre­ber, 1776)", 2014; Barysh­nikov, 2000; Van­der­haar and Hwang, 2003; Wil­son and Reeder, 2005)

Con­trib­u­tors

Zara Hoff­man (au­thor), Sierra Col­lege, Jen­nifer Skillen (ed­i­tor), Sierra Col­lege, Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

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