How many baby Honey badgers are in a litter?
A Honey badger (Mellivora capensis) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 4 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 181 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 210 grams (0.46 lbs) and measure 1.5 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Mustelidae family (genus: Mellivora). An adult Honey badger grows up to a size of 68.4 cm (2′ 3″).
To have a reference: Humans obviously usually have a litter size of one ;). Their babies are in the womb of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks) and reach an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″). They weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual, and reach an average age of 75 years.
The honey badger (Mellivora capensis), also known as the ratel ( or ), is a mammal widely distributed in Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Because of its wide range and occurrence in a variety of habitats, it is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.It is the only species in the genus Mellivora and in the mustelid subfamily Mellivorinae. Despite its name, the honey badger does not closely resemble other badger species; instead, it bears more anatomical similarities to weasels. It is primarily a carnivorous species and has few natural predators because of its thick skin, strength and ferocious defensive abilities. It is listed as the “world’s most fearless animal” in the 2002 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.
Other animals of the family Mustelidae
Honey badger is a member of the Mustelidae, as are these animals:
- African striped weasel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- American hog-nosed skunk with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Smooth-coated otter with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Bornean ferret-badger with 2 babies per pregnancy
- European mink with 4 babies per pregnancy
- American hog-nosed skunk with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Beech marten with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Siberian weasel with 6 babies per pregnancy
- Eastern spotted skunk with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Hooded skunk with 4 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Honey badger
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- African black shrew
- Indian grey mongoose
- Ruddy mongoose
- Spotted-necked otter
- Highland streaked tenrec
- New Guinean jumping mouse
- Indomalayan pencil-tailed tree mouse
- Round-tailed muskrat
- Alston’s brown mouse
- Thomas’s giant deer mouse
Animals that get as old as a Honey badger
Other animals that usually reach the age of 26.5 years:
- Bighorn sheep with 24 years
- Aardvark with 24 years
- Leopard with 23 years
- Kob with 21.92 years
- Sunda slow loris with 26.5 years
- East Caucasian tur with 22 years
- Red deer with 26.75 years
- Bontebok with 21.67 years
- Aye-aye with 24.25 years
- Greater kudu with 23 years
Animals with the same weight as a Honey badger
What other animals weight around 9 kg (19.84 lbs)?
- Smooth-coated otter usually reaching 8.96 kgs (19.75 lbs)
- Red-faced spider monkey usually reaching 8.7 kgs (19.18 lbs)
- Golden jackal usually reaching 9.67 kgs (21.32 lbs)
- Sharpe’s grysbok usually reaching 9.37 kgs (20.66 lbs)
- Malayan porcupine usually reaching 8 kgs (17.64 lbs)
- Preuss’s red colobus usually reaching 8.87 kgs (19.55 lbs)
- Ursine colobus usually reaching 7.7 kgs (16.98 lbs)
- Culpeo usually reaching 8.62 kgs (19 lbs)
- François’ langur usually reaching 8.16 kgs (17.99 lbs)
- Maxwell’s duiker usually reaching 8.56 kgs (18.87 lbs)
Animals with the same size as a Honey badger
Also reaching around 68.4 cm (2′ 3″) in size do these animals:
- Mantled howler gets as big as 57.7 cm (1′ 11″)
- Silvery gibbon gets as big as 67.6 cm (2′ 3″)
- Bobcat gets as big as 69.1 cm (2′ 4″)
- Black howler gets as big as 55.9 cm (1′ 11″)
- Neotropical otter gets as big as 60.2 cm (2′ 0″)
- Moor macaque gets as big as 66 cm (2′ 2″)
- Black colobus gets as big as 62.9 cm (2′ 1″)
- Chimpanzee gets as big as 79.6 cm (2′ 8″)
- Culpeo gets as big as 72 cm (2′ 5″)
- Tana River red colobus gets as big as 56 cm (1′ 11″)