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Taxidea taxusAmerican badger

By Nancy Shefferly

Ge­o­graphic Range

Bad­gers are found pri­mar­ily in the Great Plains re­gion of North Amer­ica. Bad­gers occur north through the cen­tral west­ern Cana­dian provinces, in ap­pro­pri­ate habi­tat through­out the west­ern United States, and south through­out the moun­tain­ous areas of Mex­ico. They have ex­panded their range since the turn of the 20th cen­tury and are now found as far east as On­tario, Canada. (Kurta, 1995; Long, 1999)

Habi­tat

Bad­gers pre­fer to live in dry, open grass­lands, fields, and pas­tures. They are found from high alpine mead­ows to sea level (or below in Death Val­ley, Cal­i­for­nia). (Long, 1999)

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Bad­gers mea­sure 520 to 875 mm from head to tail, with the tail mak­ing up only 100 to 155 mm of this length. Bad­gers weigh 4 to 12 kg. The body is flat­tened, and the legs are short and stocky. The fur on the back and flanks of the an­i­mal ranges from gray­ish to red­dish. The ven­trum is a buffy color. The face of the bad­ger is dis­tinct. The throat and chin are whitish, and the face has black patches. A white dor­sal stripe ex­tends back over the head from the nose. In north­ern pop­u­la­tions, this stripe ends near the shoul­ders. In south­ern pop­u­la­tions, how­ever, it con­tin­ues over the back to the rump. Males are sig­nif­i­cantly larger than fe­males and an­i­mals from north­ern pop­u­la­tions are larger than those from south­ern pop­u­la­tions. (Kurta, 1995; Long, 1999)

  • Sexual Dimorphism
  • male larger
  • Range mass
    4 to 12 kg
    8.81 to 26.43 lb
  • Range length
    520 to 875 mm
    20.47 to 34.45 in
  • Average basal metabolic rate
    15.062 W
    AnAge

Re­pro­duc­tion

The home ranges of both male and fe­male bad­gers ex­pands dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son, in­di­cat­ing that males and fe­males travel more ex­ten­sively to find mates. Males have larger home ranges that are likely to over­lap with the home ranges of sev­eral fe­males. (Long, 1999)

Mat­ing oc­curs in late sum­mer or early au­tumn but em­bryos are ar­rested early in de­vel­op­ment. Im­plan­ta­tion is de­layed until De­cem­ber or as late as Feb­ru­ary. After this pe­riod em­bryos im­plant into the uter­ine wall and re­sume de­vel­op­ment. So, al­though a fe­male is tech­ni­cally preg­nant for 7 months, ges­ta­tion is a mere 6 weeks. Lit­ters of 1 to 5 off­spring, with an av­er­age of 3, are born in early spring. Fe­males are able to mate when they are 4 months old, but males do not mate until the au­tumn of their sec­ond year. Most fe­males mate after their first year. (Long, 1999; Sul­li­van, 1996)

  • Breeding interval
    Badgers breed once per year.
  • Breeding season
    Badgers mate in late summer or early autumn.
  • Range number of offspring
    1 to 5
  • Average number of offspring
    3
    AnAge
  • Average gestation period
    6 weeks
  • Average gestation period
    41 days
    AnAge
  • Range weaning age
    2 to 3 months
  • Range time to independence
    5 to 6 months
  • Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
    4 (low) months
  • Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
    12 months
  • Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
    16 months
  • Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
    Sex: male
    441 days
    AnAge

Fe­male bad­gers pre­pare a grass-lined den in which to give birth. Bad­gers are born blind and help­less with a thin coat of fur. The eyes of the young­sters open at 4 to 6 weeks old, and the young are nursed by their mother until they are 2 to 3 months old. Fe­males give their young solid food be­fore they are weaned and for a few weeks after they are weaned. Young may emerge from the den as early as 5 to 6 weeks old. Ju­ve­niles dis­perse at 5 to 6 months. (Kurta, 1995; Long, 1999; Sul­li­van, 1996)

  • Parental Investment
  • altricial
  • 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

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Bad­gers have lived to be 26 years old in cap­tiv­ity. The av­er­age lifes­pan in the wild has been es­ti­mated by dif­fer­ent re­searchers at 4 to 5 years and at 9 to 10 years. The old­est wild bad­ger lived to 14 years. Yearly mor­tal­ity was es­ti­mated at 35% by one study. Some pop­u­la­tions are es­ti­mated to be up to 80% year­lings or young of the year, sug­gest­ing high mor­tal­ity rates. (Kurta, 1995; Long, 1999; Sul­li­van, 1996)

Be­hav­ior

Bad­gers are soli­tary an­i­mals. Typ­i­cal pop­u­la­tion den­sity is about 5 an­i­mals per square kilo­me­ter. Bad­gers are mainly ac­tive at night, and tend to be in­ac­tive dur­ing the win­ter months. They are not true hi­ber­na­tors, but spend much of the win­ter in cy­cles of tor­por that usu­ally last about 29 hours. Dur­ing tor­por body tem­per­a­tures fall to about 9 de­grees Cel­sius and the heart beats at about half the nor­mal rate. They emerge from their dens on warm days in the win­ter.

Bad­gers are ex­cel­lent dig­ging ma­chines. Their pow­er­fully built fore­limbs allow them to tun­nel rapidly through the soil, and ap­par­ently through other harder sub­stances as well. There are anec­do­tal ac­counts of bad­gers emerg­ing from holes they have ex­ca­vated through black­topped pave­ment and two inch thick con­crete.

Their bur­rows are con­structed mainly in the pur­suit of prey, but they are also used for sleep­ing. A typ­i­cal bad­ger den may be as far a 3 me­ters below the sur­face, con­tain about 10 me­ters of tun­nels, and have an en­larged cham­ber for sleep­ing. Bad­gers use mul­ti­ple bur­rows within their home range, and they may not use the same bur­row more than once a month. In the sum­mer months they may dig a new bur­row each day. (Kurta, 1995; Long, 1999; Sul­li­van, 1996)

  • Range territory size
    1.6 to 2.4 km^2

Home Range

Males oc­cupy larger home ranges than fe­males (2.4 ver­sus 1.6 square kilo­me­ters), but this species is not known to de­fend an ex­clu­sive ter­ri­tory. (Kurta, 1995; Long, 1999)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Bad­gers have keen vi­sion, scent, and hear­ing. They have nerve end­ings in the fore­claws that may make them es­pe­cially sen­si­tive to touch in their forepaws, but this has not been in­ves­ti­gated. Not much is known about com­mu­ni­ca­tion in these nor­mally soli­tary an­i­mals, but it is likely that home ranges are marked with scents that are used by con­specifics to de­ter­mine re­pro­duc­tive readi­ness. (Long, 1999)

Food Habits

Bad­gers are car­niv­o­rous. Their dom­i­nant prey are pocket go­phers (Ge­omyi­dae), ground squir­rels (Sper­mophilus), moles (Talp­i­dae), mar­mots (Mar­mota), prairie dogs (Cyno­mys), woodrats (Neotoma), kan­ga­roo rats (Dipodomys), deer mice (Per­omyscus), and voles (Mi­cro­tus). They also prey on ground nest­ing birds, such as bank swal­lows (Ri­paria ri­paria and bur­row­ing owls Athene cu­nic­u­laria), lizards, am­phib­ians, car­rion, fish, hi­ber­nat­ing skunks (Mephi­tis and Spi­lo­gale), in­sects, in­clud­ing bees and hon­ey­comb, and some plant foods, such as corn (Zea) and sun­flower seeds (He­lianthus). Un­like many car­ni­vores that stalk their prey in open coun­try, bad­gers catch most of their food by dig­ging. They can tun­nel after ground dwelling ro­dents with amaz­ing speed. They have been known to cache food. (Long, 1999; Sul­li­van, 1996)

  • Primary Diet
  • carnivore
    • eats terrestrial vertebrates
  • Animal Foods
  • birds
  • mammals
  • amphibians
  • reptiles
  • insects
  • terrestrial non-insect arthropods

Pre­da­tion

Nat­ural pre­da­tion on bad­gers is rare, with young an­i­mals being most vul­ner­a­ble. The pri­mary preda­tors of bad­gers are hu­mans who are re­spon­si­ble for habi­tat de­struc­tion, trap­ping, hunt­ing, au­to­mo­bile fa­tal­i­ties, and poi­son­ing. Other re­ported preda­tors of Amer­i­can bad­gers in­clude golden ea­gles (Aquila chrysae­tos), bob­cats (Lynx rufus), cougars (Puma con­color), and coy­otes (Canis la­trans). Bears (Ursus) and gray wolves (Canis lupus) may also some­times take bad­gers. (Long, 1999; Sul­li­van, 1996)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Bad­gers are im­por­tant con­sumers of many small prey items in their ecosys­tem. They help to con­trol ro­dent pop­u­la­tions, kill ven­omous snakes, and eat in­sects and car­rion. Their bur­rows pro­vide shel­ter for other species and their dig­ging ac­tiv­ity helps in soil de­vel­op­ment. (Long, 1999)

Bad­gers and coy­otes are some­times seen hunt­ing at the same time in an ap­par­ently co­op­er­a­tive man­ner. Bad­gers can read­ily dig ro­dents out of bur­rows but can­not run them down read­ily. Coy­otes, on the other hand, can read­ily run ro­dents down while above ground, but can­not ef­fec­tively dig them out of bur­rows. When bad­gers and coy­otes hunt in the same area at the same time, they may in­crease the num­ber of ro­dents avail­able to the other. Coy­otes take ad­van­tage of ro­dents at­tempt­ing to es­cape from bad­gers at­tack­ing their bur­rows and it has been demon­strated that coy­otes ben­e­fit from the as­so­ci­a­tion. Bad­gers may be able to take ad­van­tage of ro­dents that are es­cap­ing coy­otes by flee­ing into bur­rows, but it is more dif­fi­cult to as­sess whether bad­gers ac­tu­ally do ben­e­fit from this as­so­ci­a­tion. Bad­gers and coy­otes tol­er­ate each other's pres­ence and may even en­gage in play be­hav­ior. (Sul­li­van, 1996)

Mu­tu­al­ist Species

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Bad­gers eat many ro­dent pests, which may carry dis­ease or dam­age crops. In ad­di­tion, their bur­rows pro­vide shel­ter for small game mam­mals, like cot­ton­tail rab­bits. The fur is at­trac­tive, it has been used as a trim on Na­tive Amer­i­can gar­ments and his­tor­i­cally it was used to make shav­ing and paint­ing brushes. (Long, 1999)

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

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Bad­ger bur­rows may pre­sent a haz­ard to cat­tle and horses. Such an­i­mals have been known to break legs by step­ping into bad­ger holes.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Amer­i­can bad­gers are fairly com­mon in ap­pro­pri­ate habi­tats and are not gen­er­ally con­sid­ered threat­ened. In some areas they are un­com­mon or rare. In Michi­gan, Wis­con­sin, Illi­nois, and British Co­lum­bia they are pro­tected from hunt­ing by law. (Kurta, 1995; Long, 1999; Sul­li­van, 1996)

Con­trib­u­tors

Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Al­li­son Poor (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Nancy Shef­ferly (au­thor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Glossary

Nearctic

living in the Nearctic biogeographic province, the northern part of the New World. This includes Greenland, the Canadian Arctic islands, and all of the North American as far south as the highlands of central Mexico.

World Map

acoustic

uses sound to communicate

agricultural

living in landscapes dominated by human agriculture.

altricial

young are born in a relatively underdeveloped state; they are unable to feed or care for themselves or locomote independently for a period of time after birth/hatching. In birds, naked and helpless after hatching.

bilateral symmetry

having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.

carnivore

an animal that mainly eats meat

chaparral

Found in coastal areas between 30 and 40 degrees latitude, in areas with a Mediterranean climate. Vegetation is dominated by stands of dense, spiny shrubs with tough (hard or waxy) evergreen leaves. May be maintained by periodic fire. In South America it includes the scrub ecotone between forest and paramo.

chemical

uses smells or other chemicals to communicate

delayed implantation

in mammals, a condition in which a fertilized egg reaches the uterus but delays its implantation in the uterine lining, sometimes for several months.

desert or dunes

in deserts low (less than 30 cm per year) and unpredictable rainfall results in landscapes dominated by plants and animals adapted to aridity. Vegetation is typically sparse, though spectacular blooms may occur following rain. Deserts can be cold or warm and daily temperates typically fluctuate. In dune areas vegetation is also sparse and conditions are dry. This is because sand does not hold water well so little is available to plants. In dunes near seas and oceans this is compounded by the influence of salt in the air and soil. Salt limits the ability of plants to take up water through their roots.

diurnal
  1. active during the day, 2. lasting for one day.
endothermic

animals that use metabolically generated heat to regulate body temperature independently of ambient temperature. Endothermy is a synapomorphy of the Mammalia, although it may have arisen in a (now extinct) synapsid ancestor; the fossil record does not distinguish these possibilities. Convergent in birds.

fossorial

Referring to a burrowing life-style or behavior, specialized for digging or burrowing.

heterothermic

having a body temperature that fluctuates with that of the immediate environment; having no mechanism or a poorly developed mechanism for regulating internal body temperature.

hibernation

the state that some animals enter during winter in which normal physiological processes are significantly reduced, thus lowering the animal's energy requirements. The act or condition of passing winter in a torpid or resting state, typically involving the abandonment of homoiothermy in mammals.

iteroparous

offspring are produced in more than one group (litters, clutches, etc.) and across multiple seasons (or other periods hospitable to reproduction). Iteroparous animals must, by definition, survive over multiple seasons (or periodic condition changes).

marsh

marshes are wetland areas often dominated by grasses and reeds.

motile

having the capacity to move from one place to another.

mountains

This terrestrial biome includes summits of high mountains, either without vegetation or covered by low, tundra-like vegetation.

native range

the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.

nocturnal

active during the night

polygynandrous

the kind of polygamy in which a female pairs with several males, each of which also pairs with several different females.

seasonal breeding

breeding is confined to a particular season

sedentary

remains in the same area

sexual

reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female

soil aeration

digs and breaks up soil so air and water can get in

solitary

lives alone

stores or caches food

places a food item in a special place to be eaten later. Also called "hoarding"

tactile

uses touch to communicate

temperate

that region of the Earth between 23.5 degrees North and 60 degrees North (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Arctic Circle) and between 23.5 degrees South and 60 degrees South (between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle).

terrestrial

Living on the ground.

tropical savanna and grassland

A terrestrial biome. Savannas are grasslands with scattered individual trees that do not form a closed canopy. Extensive savannas are found in parts of subtropical and tropical Africa and South America, and in Australia.

savanna

A grassland with scattered trees or scattered clumps of trees, a type of community intermediate between grassland and forest. See also Tropical savanna and grassland biome.

temperate grassland

A terrestrial biome found in temperate latitudes (>23.5° N or S latitude). Vegetation is made up mostly of grasses, the height and species diversity of which depend largely on the amount of moisture available. Fire and grazing are important in the long-term maintenance of grasslands.

visual

uses sight to communicate

viviparous

reproduction in which fertilization and development take place within the female body and the developing embryo derives nourishment from the female.

Ref­er­ences

Hoffmeis­ter, D.F. 1989. Mam­mals of Illi­nois. Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois Press, Ur­bana and Chicago.

Nowak, Ronald. 1991. Walker's Mam­mals of the World. John Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press, Bal­ti­more and Lon­don.

Kurta, A. 1995. Mam­mals of the Great Lakes Re­gion. Ann Arbor: Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan Press.

Long, C. 1999. Amer­i­can bad­ger: Taxidea taxus. Pp. 177-179 in D Wil­son, S Ruff, eds. The Smith­son­ian Book of North Amer­i­can Mam­mals. Wash­ing­ton, D.C.: Smith­son­ian In­sti­tu­tion Press.

Sul­li­van, J. 1996. "Taxidea taxus" (On-line). USDA For­est Ser­vice, Wildlife Species. Ac­cessed Sep­tem­ber 08, 2006 at http://​www.​fs.​fed.​us/​database/​feis/​wildlife/​mammal/​tata/​all.​html.

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Classification

Classification

  • Kingdom Animalia animals
  • Phylum Chordata chordates
  • Subphylum Vertebrata vertebrates
  • Class Mammalia mammals
  • Order Carnivora carnivores
  • Family Mustelidae badgers, otters, weasels, and relatives
  • Genus Taxidea American badger
  • Species Taxidea taxus American badger