The honey badger, also known as a ratel, is not as sweet as the name suggests! It also isn’t that closely related to a badger, and is more akin to a weasel. So we’re already getting off to a deceptive start although it’s probably not fair to blame the honey badger for that, we are the ones who named it after all!
One explanation for it’s name comes from a relationship it allegedly has with the honeyguide bird. It is said that the birds can find honey and not get into the hive, so they fly close to the honey badger, calling and inviting it to follow. The bird then leads the honey badger to the hive where it uses it’s sharp claws to break in, eat the larva and leave the honey for the honeyguide. However, there is no evidence of this and the honey badger is nocturnal where the honeyguide is diurnal…
Now, let’s get a bit more familiar with this creature. You probably don’t know much about the honey badger, beyond it’s reputation on the internet…
They are about 60-70cm long, about 25cm tall and weigh between 8 and 12kg and are quite stocky. They have a large skull, a muscular neck and tend to be part black, part grey or white. Strong front feet feature large claws and they have a strange skin feature; it’s thick and loose which means when a predator gets hold of them, they can squirm and twist and bite the attacker. The skin is so tough that it is impervious to arrows and spears and even tough enough to resist a machete. The honey badger has definitely mastered it’s armour and whilst the honey badger does need this extreme version, do you? Of course, we don’t walk round in chain metal but we all have emotional armoury.
In terms of how they sense the world, they have poor eyesight but a very powerful sense of smell. To be fair, they are nocturnal so would have to have really good eyesight to make it a useful sense.
They are solitary and generally only come together to mate. Once mated, the male goes on his way, leaving the female to raise the cubs. Cubs are born blind and hairless, staying in the den for the first few months of life. Every few days the mum moves the cubs to a new den, which feels like a defensive and protective action. At about three months old, they start to forage with their mum and will move burrow every night. At about a year, year and a half, they go their own way.
As already hinted at, they are nomadic, self reliant creatures, not relying on anyone and not getting attached to anywhere. Does this sound familiar? If it does, maybe it’s time to reflect on that a little.
They sleep in burrows and are able to dig tunnels in hard ground quickly with those sharp, large claws but will also appropriate them from other animals. Being able to dig quickly helps them find food as well, uprooting it from a supposedly safe space… They are foragers with a broad diet including eggs and chicks but a lot of their diet is venomous snakes, which they are immune to, giving it a good supply of food as most animals can’t eat them.
However, snake venom is complex and they don’t get away without some effect. It is this that earns them the name nature’s zombies. They attack the snake, and in doing so can get bitten leading to venom getting into the honey badger’s veins. The snake dies and so, it appears, does the honey badger but a couple of hours later they ‘come back to life’ and eat the snake.
If you’ve pulled the honey badger card, perhaps you should be asking yourself if something is worth it, do you want it enough to take the hit that comes with it?
An array of offensive and defensive weapons mean they don’t really have many predators. Their thick skin is hard to grasp, their sharp claws strike a painful blow and then there is their reversible anal pouch… When threatened they can push it out their anus and it emits a foul smell (they are related to skunks). The honey badger is not afraid to attack though and appears to take a fearless approach to facing opponents. Do you need to follow suit? Or are you creating battles when they aren’t needed? If you go into a situation ready to attack, then everything becomes a war. Perhaps this card has appeared to remind you that you don’t need to fight, or that you should ensure you are fighting for the right cause.
Their vulnerable points, the eyes, ears and tail are small which reduces the vulnerability. This is an animal that really sets it’s boundaries. This, combined with all their attack and defence options, makes me ask, what are they afraid to show? In terms of the tarot card or oracle card, what are you guarding or hiding from the world? There’s a huge difference between being appropriately private or cautious about sharing something, and being so private and closed off that it is you that is hurting yourself. Many of us wonder how people will react when we share a facet of ourselves but if the other person is not accepting of it, you learn something about that relationship.
Recently on an episode of Queer Eye, one of the presenters rephrased ‘coming out’ as ‘letting someone in’, do you need to do more work on letting people in?
As well as being physically well adapted for their life, honey badgers are highly intelligent. Their brain is comparatively large and they are ingenious problem solvers, using flexible thinking and tools to break into hen houses, and out of zoos. If there’s something they want, they will get it.
Having an attitude as being scrappy and tenacious is great for keeping predators at bay, except when those predators are humans who want the honey badger for use in traditional medicine. It is believed that their fearlessness and bravery will be transferred to the human. Another human made danger for honey badgers are traps as farmers and bee keepers try to protect their livelihoods, in fact conflict between beekeepers and honey badgers has been documented since the early 1800s (International Journal of Avian & Wildlife Biology).
Being well adapted and also adaptable means honey badgers can cope with a lot of uncomfortable situations but being able to cope with something doesn’t always mean you should. When negative things come into our lives gradually, we can turn around and find ourselves in terrible scenarios that we don’t have the keep coping with, think of the boiling frog metaphor…