狗獾
- Females can superfetate — conceive new cubs while already carrying older embryos.
- A badger eats only 0.5 kg of food per day, but by autumn it accumulates fat that serves as a food source during the winter hibernation.
- A badger's pregnancy can last up to 450 days if mating occurs in winter.
- The badger has powerful paws with claws, and a weak enclosure it will simply break, and if possible, it will dig a tunnel in any soil.
- Badgers dig deep burrows in sandy hills, forest gullies, and valleys. Burrows are located on slopes.
- Old badger setts are complex underground structures with up to 40–50 entrances and 2–3 nesting chambers, located at a depth of up to 5 m.
- The badger lives in deep burrows that are passed down from generation to generation. Some of these burrows, research has shown, are several thousand years old.
- The lifespan of a badger in captivity can reach up to 16 years, exceeding its natural lifespan in the wild.
- Badgers have delayed implantation, so cubs are born in February regardless of when mating occurred.
- A badger can eat up to 200 earthworms in a single night.
- Badgers produce up to 16 different calls.
- Badger setts can be used for generations and contain hundreds of metres of tunnels.
- One sett in England contained more than 300 metres of tunnels.
- The badger does not truly hibernate but enters torpor.
年龄
The European badger or Old World badger has a typical lifespan of from 4 to 12 years, although the maximum recorded lifespan is 18 years and 7 months, with a theoretical lifespan ranging from 9 years and 4 months to 18 years and 7 months. The species reaches sexual maturity from 9 months and 1 week to 1 year and 3 months of age; the young’s eyes open between 3 weeks and 1 month and 1 week. The embryo develops inside the mother, and due to delayed implantation, this period can last up to a year. The newborn, called a cub, is born blind and without fur, living in a den with its mother for a duration of from 1 day to 6 months. Following this, the species enters the adult stage, which lasts from 1 to 12 years; during this time, the badger lives either alone or in a group, digging burrows and foraging for food at night.
表型
Young European badgers have small claws that grow quickly for future digging, and their skin is pink with sparse fur during the first weeks. The species possesses long and strong claws on its front paws to aid in digging earth and burrows, and has sharp teeth for catching prey and chewing plant matter. Adult Eurasian badgers have dense grey-brown fur covering their bodies, protecting them from cold and damage. The head features two broad black stripes extending from the nose through the eyes to the ears against a white background. An adult’s fur protects it from cold and damage.
生理学
The European badger’s body height ranges from 17.8 centimeters to 3.5 meters, and its body length varies from 55 centimeters to 0.9 meters; its mass falls between 11.69 and 14.32 kilograms. During the embryo stage, the body mass is from 0 to 0.1 grams. The young badger’s body mass is between 100 grams and 2 kilograms, with a body length of 10 to 30 centimeters. An adult individual’s body mass ranges from 10 to 17 kilograms, and its body length varies from 60 centimeters to 0.9 meters.
栖息地
The European badger inhabits terrestrial landscapes including ground forests and grassy areas, and can be found at elevations up to 2 kilometers above sea level. This species occupies temperate mixed forests with warm summers and many oaks, birches, and maples, as well as flooded meadows where water frequently covers the land and there is abundant grass, and taiga characterized by cold winters and numerous coniferous trees such as fir and pine. The climate is consistently very wet with frequent rainfall and high humidity; summers are cool and rainy with snow in winter, or warm and pleasant with abundant rainfall, or simply warm with a mild winter, and summers are comfortable with temperatures ranging from 20 to 25 degrees Celsius.
庇护所
The European badger shelters underground on hillsides or within forests, utilizing a burrow as its dwelling. The species uses an excavated underground tunnel or chamber for sheltering and nesting, incorporating soil, berries, and grass into the structure. These burrows serve multiple purposes, including hibernation, reproduction, rest, and protection from sunlight.
地理
The European badger is found within the Palearctic biogeographical region and inhabits several ecosystems, including Celtic broadleaf forests, broadleaf forests of Western Europe, coniferous forests of the Cilian Mountains, Balkan mixed forests, Baltic mixed forests, and European Atlantic mixed forests.
食性
The European badger is an omnivorous species; its diet primarily consists of earthworms and insects, alongside berries, fruits, and occasionally small vertebrates. The species forages and grazes, searching for food at night using a keen sense of smell, digging in the soil, and overturning stones. Food sources include earthworms, insects, berries, fruits, and small mammals. The daily food requirement ranges from 200 grams to 0.5 kilograms. Young badgers consume milk. The species preys on field voles, forest voles, brown frogs, toads, common moles, water voles, hares, and Eurasian hedgehogs.
繁殖
European badgers inhabit and develop on land, away from bodies of water, and their young develop in a nest built on or near the ground, specifically within an underground den where the mother alone displays parental care. Reproduction is sexual, with mating occurring in summer but embryonic development delayed, resulting in live birth of cubs during winter or early spring. Gestation lasts 1 month and 3 weeks, and the female has litters of 2 to 5 young. The species reaches maturity from 1 to 2 years of age, with a reproductive interval of 1 year. Reproduction is always accomplished through fertilization, without alternating generations.