How Many Babies Do Honey Badgers Have?

Honey badgers usually have just one baby at a time. Baby honey badgers are referred to as cubs. Female honey badgers are left to give birth and raise their cubs all alone. Cubs depend on their mother for a couple of months, until the mother decides it’s time for them to start finding their food. 

Though only one honey badger cub is delivered at a time, it is not uncommon for multiple babies to share a burrow. During this period, they are taken care of by their mothers.  Honey badgers typically stay together at younger ages but become more isolated as they grow older.

Let’s look at honey badgers, their 

Honey Badger Babies

Female badgers are left isolated to give birth and raise their baby cubs. The pregnant mother digs a burrow, or nursery chamber, for her infant, and lines it with grass. One cub, in rare cases two, is born after a 7 to 10-week gestation period. 

A honey badger baby has pink skin and closed eyelids and is hairless. Its skin begins to turn from pink to gray at one week of age, and fine gray hair begins to develop two weeks later. After approximately a week, the typical white stripe appears.

The cub begins to closely resemble its parents when they reach around three months old. They attain adult size at 6 months, but they aren’t ready to go off on their own quite yet. When a honey badger is around fourteen months to two years old, they start learning the crucial hunting tactics needed to survive by themselves in the wild.

How Often Do Honey Badgers Have Babies?

Even though badgers can mate whenever they choose, they only have a single litter annually as the implantation is delayed. They deliver their cubs between January and March, in the middle to the latter part of winter. Male honey badgers don’t play a role in a cub’s life.

They leave the females during pregnancy to deal with everything on their own. You can think of the females in this situation as single mothers. Male honey badgers also grow … Read the rest of the story.

Are Honey Badgers Immune to Venom? If So, How?

“Hey Mom, do you know what a honey badger is?”

I grunted in reply as I tried to squeeze into the closet to retrieve the hidden feather duster.  “They like to pick fights with everyone. Look, Mom!

They’re mean with super sharp teeth. Did you know they can break into a tortoiseshell?” My inquisitive yet slightly annoying ten-year-old son asked me on a typical sunny Saturday afternoon.

He’s got his laptop on with a YouTube video and all I hear is growling and hissing with an occasional roar from a lion. I dug into another part of the closet, hoping it would be behind the vacuum.  “Yup,” I answered him, giving up shortly after not finding the darn thing.

I looked at his laptop. It’s a honey badger confronting 3 lionesses in the dry African savanna. “You do? They play dirty.

They go for the balls when they fight. Like rip them off and wait for the other guy to bleed out. Look, they’re fighting a bunch of lions right now.

” My son pauses to gulp more air before continuing.   “Did you know that honey badgers are immune to venom?”  Like so many other kids his age, Dean is fascinated with zoology – the study of the animal classification, physiology, behavior, and structure of the animal kingdom. 

“Why is that? How do they not get sick? Are they immune?”

Dean asked, not waiting for an answer. I had a feeling my Saturday cleaning would have to wait. With a mind like his, this was possibly the only time to take advantage of his curiosity.

It wouldn’t be long before he would think he was smarter than me and his dad.

“Well, I don’t know. We can look into researching this.”

Honey badgers. The name implies something cute and cuddly. Except it isn’t.

These ferocious ratels are related to skunks, ferrets, and even otters. They’re mostly found in Africa, the Middle East, parts of India and Southwest Asia, with their habitat in grasslands, forests, mountains, and deserts. Black coarse hair with a white stripe running down from the top … Read the rest of the story.

How Do Porcupines Care for and Raise their Young?

Porcupines are cute, prickly mammals that live in the desert, hills, and dense forests. They are very versatile, in that they can adapt to many different habitats. Because of this resilience, I became curious: how do porcupines care for their young?

Adapting to various surroundings by themselves is one thing; caring for and protecting their children in those differing environments is a whole other concern. The many methods porcupines have for taking care of their kids are interesting—here is a breakdown of some of them.

How do Porcupines Feed Their Children?

The diet of porcupines consists largely of veggies, fruits, and various herbs. Porcupines are primarily herbivores. A particularly fascinating aspect of porcupines is how they obtain food, and how they provide food for their children.

Their herbivorous diet is just as diverse as the locales they can be found in. This is also because their selection of foods changes with the seasons. One of the most common ways porcupines get food for their young is from trees.

The parent porcupines will lead their children to the base of a tree they want to get food from. For safety, the kids will stay huddled together at the bottom of the tree. Then, the parent or parents will begin their climb upward.

The kids will just have to wait patiently for their meal to arrive. Porcupines will eat tree bark and pine needles, which are a good source of sustenance in winter. They also eat grass on occasion.

Once the parent(s) are back from their trip up the tree, their young will have something tasty to snack on. While it is not the primary part of their diet, porcupines do eat meat. They do not prey on other animals to do this, however, and only eat meat when their options are very limited.

The only method of gathering meat is when they find animal remains. This makes this portion of their diet solely out of survival needs. Keeping the kids fed and happy is one aspect of care.

What about when they have to battle the elements?

Porcupine Parents and

… Read the rest of the story.

How Do Porcupines Stay Warm?

Porcupines don’t hibernate, so they need to prepare for cold months, especially since they can be found in places that get very cold in the winter, such as Alaska. They start the winter with as much as half their weight being fat. With the knowledge of the warmer places to bed down, help from a thick undercoat, and this added fat, they can get through most winter conditions.

These prickly little critters have developed a complete routine to keep themselves warm. Let’s take a look.

Storing Fat

Biologist Jessy Coltrane spent time in Alaska studying the porcupines for a paper. She monitored several of these little creatures and made the discovery that at least fifty percent of the weight they carried going into winter was fat. Throughout the winter, they moved very little, reserving their energy and living off that stored fat when they were unable to get out to eat.

In order to reserve as much energy as possible, they moved very rarely and did sleep a lot.

Winter Coat

The coat is a porcupine and is multi-layered. It consists of a wooly undercoat that is made up of soft hairs. This coat is covered with coarse guard hairs that help protect the porcupine itself.

Then the areas of its back, tail, and sides are covered with quills, which are hollow, allowing for the air inside to be warmer from its body heat. Normally, the body temperature of a porcupine is that of humans, and scientists have discovered that both hot and cold temperatures don’t cause it to vary much because of this protection. In addition, many types of porcupines grow an additional layer of fur on the outside that looks like a wooly winter coat and adds protection from the cold.

Homebodies

Porcupines are very fond of living in trees but during the winter they seek out areas that can protect them from the wind, keeping them warmer. They have a preference for rocky ledges with crevices but will also utilize hollow trees or the deserted dens of beavers and other animals. For those who live further up … Read the rest of the story.

How Many Tropical Rainforests Are There?

One of my favorite facts about rainforests is that they’re cornucopias of life. According to worldrainforestday.org, rainforests contain about 50% of all terrestrial biodiversity. But, how many rainforests are there to be able to harbor such a considerable amount of ecosystems?

Well, scientists don’t usually refer to the number of rainforests in the world per se. Instead, they talk more about the amount of rainforest coverage in the world.

Tropical Rainforests Vs. Temperate Rainforests

This article talks about how many tropical rainforests there are in the world. However, tropical rainforests are only one type of rainforest. Rainforests are mainly divided into tropical and temperate rainforests.

Both tropical and temperate rainforests are located between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Rainforests are found on every continent, with the exception of Antarctica.

The main difference between tropical and temperate rainforests is that tropical rainforests are located closer to the equator, where the temperatures are warmer. On the other hand, temperate rainforests are found to the north and the south of the equator, along the cooler coastal regions. In addition, temperate rainforests have less biodiversity and receive fewer inches of rain per year.

For a rainforest to be classified as such, it must receive 60-80 inches of rainfall each year. Generally, a rainforest is defined as a forest that gets a lot of rainfall. In fact, it rains throughout the year in the tropical rainforest, and the environment is always hot and moist.

Another characteristic of rainforests is the four distinct layers.

• Emergent layer. Emergents are the tall, giant trees that grow above the general canopy. Their height ranges from 70 to 100m.
• Canopy layer. The canopy layer is the largest part of the rainforest, and the trees here also grow to be very tall. The canopy layer overlaps so much it creates a roof over the forest that prevents sunlight from reaching the forest floor.
• The understory. The understory is a humid and damp level made up of smaller plants and trees, such as vines and palms. These plants have adapted to environments where there’s little

… Read the rest of the story.

Can Porcupines kill Snakes? Cats? Chickens?

Porcupines are generally not aggressive animals; however, they will react if attacked. Their quills can be very sharp and painful for any animal or human being who tries to threaten them. Here is a closer look at the traits of a porcupine and whether or not they are a danger to other animals.

What is a Porcupine?

Erethizon Dorsatum, better known as the North American porcupine, is a mammal in the rodent family notable for its quill-covered bodies. Adult porcupines have about 30,000 quills covering their bodies, used for defense and keeping their bodies warm in the winter. Contrary to popular belief, the quills of a porcupine are not poisonous.

However, they are very sharp and can cause serious injury to any other animal who comes in contact with them. The quills also have barbs at the end, making them painful to remove. Porcupines are slow-moving creatures that are natural herbivores, so they are not known to be aggressive or hostile to other animals.

But if attacked, they will use their quills to ward off other predators. They can’t shoot their quills at an attacking animal, but they will use their body to target specific areas on a predator’s body.

Can Porcupines Kill Snakes?

Even though porcupines are the second-largest rodent on earth, snakes are known to occasionally target them as prey. Snakes like pythons and vipers are known for swallowing a porcupine’s whole, which can often be a deadly mistake. A study published by the Phyllomedusa Journal of Herpetology in 2003 found that porcupine quills are sharp enough to pierce through the body of a snake.

So, if a snake tries to swallow a porcupine whole, it can cause severe injury and even death from the impact of the quills. It turns out that it’s rare for porcupines and snakes to encounter one another, but it does occur. Another similar study cited more than ten documented instances of porcupines harming snakes, with an estimated survival rate of 33%.

Porcupines are a high-risk meal for a hungry viper or python. But if they are hungry enough or don’t see … Read the rest of the story.

How Many Teeth Do Porcupines Have?

Porcupines have twenty teeth. This includes four incisors and 16 molars. Like many members of the rodent family, their front two molars never stop growing.

Unlike other rodents, their teeth are bright orange in color. With so many teeth, you would think that these animals would bite when fighting, but they are not known for biting. They do use their teeth in a unique way when they are defending themselves, however.

We will find out how a bit later. Let’s take a deeper look into porcupine teeth and their unusual qualities.

Always Growing

Incisors on a porcupine never stop growing. This could become a problem if the porcupine doesn’t find a way to grind the teeth down to a manageable size. If they become too long, he won’t be able to eat. Being plant-eaters, the food a porcupine eats doesn’t do much in the way of helping to grind the teeth down.

This is why you often find porcupines gnawing on tree bark. In addition to tree bark, porcupines will gnaw on deer antlers that have fallen off in the winter. In addition to helping grind the teeth to a manageable size, the antlers help provide salt and other minerals that the porcupine needs to be healthy.

Porcupines can also be found munching on boat oars and other wooden objects around the camps of humans. They seem to be particularly attracted to things that are covered in human sweat. This is most likely because the sweat contains salt, which is something that all porcupines crave and will actively seek out.

Orange Teeth?

Something that may surprise you if you happen upon a porcupine is that they are bright orange in color. This is because the teeth contain a high amount of iron oxide that makes up the enamel. Not all rodents have this color, but porcupines do share this trait with beavers.

The mineral iron that makes up the enamel allows the coating of the teeth to become stronger than if the coating contained the traditional magnesium that makes up most teeth enamel.

This allows the porcupine to … Read the rest of the story.