Species: Taxidea taxus

American Badger
Species

    A heavy-bodied, short-legged mammal with long fore claws, long fur (longest on the sides), and a short bushy tail; upperparts are yellowish gray to reddish brown, with a white middorsal stripe extending from the snout to the neck or shoulders in the north and usually to the rump in the south; black patches are present on the face and cheeks; underparts are buffy, except for the whitish chin, throat, and mid-ventral region; feet are dark brown to black; head and body length 42-72 cm, tail length 10-15.5 cm, mass 4-12 kg (Nowak 1991).

    Kingdom
    Animalia
    Phylum
    Craniata
    Class

    Mammalia

    Order

    Carnivora

    Family

    Mustelidae

    Genus

    Taxidea

    Classification
    Other Global Common Names
    Badger - blaireau d'Amérique
    Informal Taxonomy
    Animals, Vertebrates - Mammals - Carnivores
    Formal Taxonomy
    Animalia - Craniata - Mammalia - Carnivora - Mustelidae - Taxidea - is a generic synonym.

    A heavy-bodied, short-legged mammal with long fore claws, long fur (longest on the sides), and a short bushy tail; upperparts are yellowish gray to reddish brown, with a white middorsal stripe extending from the snout to the neck or shoulders in the north and usually to the rump in the south; black patches are present on the face and cheeks; underparts are buffy, except for the whitish chin, throat, and mid-ventral region; feet are dark brown to black; head and body length 42-72 cm, tail length 10-15.5 cm, mass 4-12 kg (Nowak 1991).

    Short General Description
    A low-slung, wide-bodied carnivore.
    Migration
    false - false - false - Where favorable habitat is patchier, home ranges can be significantly larger. In southeastern British Columbia, male home ranges averaged 69 square kilometers (fixed kernel method) and those of females averaged 38 square kilometers (Newhouse and Kinley 2000).
    Non-migrant
    false
    Locally Migrant
    false
    Food Comments
    Feeds primarily on small rodents usually captured by digging out burrow. Ground squirrels often major item in diet, as are pocket gophers, kangaroo rats, priairie dogs, and mice; also eats scorpions, insects, snakes, lizards, and birds, especially when ground squirrel population is low (Messick and Hornocker 1981).
    Reproduction Comments
    Mates mid- to late summer. Implantation is delayed until December-February. One litter averaging 3 (2-5) is born March-early April (probably late May or early June in Kansas). Young leave family group in fall. In Idaho, 30% of young-of-the-year females bred; males were sexually mature as yearlings (Messick and Hornocker 1981).
    Ecology Comments
    Basicaly solitary, though home ranges may overlap (Messick and Hornocker 1981). <br><br>Density averages 1 per sq mile in prime open country (Long 1973). In southeastern Wyoming, density was 0.8-1.1 per sq km (Goodrich and Buskirk 1998). <br><br>In Idaho, half of the population was young-of-the-year (Messick and Hornocker 1981).
    Length
    87
    Weight
    11400
    NatureServe Global Status Rank
    G5
    Global Status Last Reviewed
    2005-03-07
    Global Status Last Changed
    1996-11-18
    Conservation Status Map
    <img src="http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/GetMapGif?CA.AB=S4&CA.BC=S1&CA.MB=S4&CA.ON=S2&CA.SK=S3&US.AZ=S3&US.AR=S1&US.CA=S4&US.CO=S4&US.ID=S5&US.IL=S4&US.IN=S2&US.IA=S4&US.KS=S3&US.MI=S4&US.MN=SNR&US.MO=SNR&US.MT=S4&US.NN=S5&US.NE=S5&US.NV=S4&US.NM=S3&US.ND=SNR&US.OH=S2&US.OK=S4&US.OR=S4&US.SD=S5&US.TX=S5&US.UT=S5&US.WA=S4&US.WI=S4&US.WY=S5" alt="Conservation Status Map" style="width: 475px; height: auto;" />
    Global Range
    FG - 20,000-2,500,000 square km (about 8000-1,000,000 square miles) - FG - Southern Canada (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and southern Ontario), south and west to Texas, and Puebla and Baja California, Mexico (Wozencraft, in Wilson and Reeder 1993; Long, in Wilson and Ruff 1999).
    Global Range Code
    FG
    Global Range Description
    20,000-2,500,000 square km (about 8000-1,000,000 square miles)
    ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.101705