American honey badger

The **American honey badger** (*Neomellivora apisvora*), also known as the **American ratel**, is a species of badger, most closely related to the American badger (*Taxidea taxus*), despite its name or appearance, that originally did not exist, but has since been created by SciiFii and introduced throughout the rainforests, wetlands, forests, open woodlands, grasslands, shrublands, and scrublands across North America to help boost biodiversity and to help control the invasive Africanized killer bees. The American honey badger has a fairly long body, but is distinctly thick-set and broad across the back. Its skin is remarkably loose, and allows it to turn and twist freely within it. The skin around the neck is 6 millimetres (0.24 in) thick, an adaptation to fighting conspecifics. The head is small and flat, with a short muzzle. The eyes are small, and the ears are little more than ridges on the skin, another adaptation to avoiding damage while fighting. The American honey badger has short and sturdy legs, with five toes on each foot. The feet are armed with very strong claws, which are short on the hind legs and remarkably long on the forelimbs. It is a partially plantigrade animal whose soles are thickly padded and naked up to the wrists. The tail is short and is covered in long hairs, save for below the base. American honey badgers measure 28 to 33 cm (11.0 to 12.9 inches) in shoulder height and 52–74 cm (20–29 inches) in body length, with the tail adding another 7–9 cm (2.7–3.5 inches). Females are smaller than males. The American honey badger is notorious for its strength, ferocity and toughness. It is known to savagely and fearlessly attack almost any other species when escape is impossible, reportedly even repelling much larger predators such as American lion, hyena, and gray wolf. Bee stings, porcupine quills, and animal bites rarely penetrate their skin. If horses, cattle, bison, or glyptodont intrude upon an American honey badger's burrow, it will attack them. The American honey badger has among the least specialised diet of the weasel family. It accesses a large part of its food by digging it out of burrows. It often raids beehives in search of both bee larvae and honey. It also feeds on insects, frogs, tortoises, turtles, lizards, rodents, snakes, birds and eggs. It also eats fruits (including berries), roots, shoots, and bulbs. When foraging for vegetables, it lifts stones or tears bark from trees. Some individuals have even been observed to chase away American lion cubs from kills. It devours all parts of its prey, including skin, hair, feathers, flesh and bones, holding its food down with its forepaws. It feeds on a wide range of vertebrates and seems to subsist primarily on small vertebrates. The American honey badger is mostly solitary, but has also been sighted in Africa to hunt in pairs during the breeding season in May. It also uses old burrows of American aardvark, wartpeccaries, and termite mounds. It is a skilled digger, able to dig tunnels into hard ground in 10 minutes. These burrows usually have only one entry, are usually only 1–3 meters (3.3–9.8 feet) long with a nesting chamber that is not lined with any bedding. Its gestation period lasts around six months, usually resulting in two or three cubs, which are born blind. Its lifespan in the wild is unknown, though captive individuals have been known to live for approximately 30 years, so it is thought that the American honey badgers living in the wild live half as long as those living in captivity. The voice of the American honey badger is a hoarse "khrya-ya-ya-ya" sound. When mating, males emit loud grunting sounds. Cubs vocalise through plaintive whines. When confronting dogs, American honey badgers scream like bear cubs. The conservation status of the American honeyguide is **Least Concern** due to successful conservation efforts, the American honeyguide's wide range and its tolerance to many of the human activities.