Species: Taxidea taxus

American Badger

Species

Encyclopedia of Puget Sound

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).

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Craniata

Class

Mammalia

Order

Carnivora

Family

Mustelidae

Genus

Taxidea

NatureServe

Source:
ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.101705

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.

Ecology and Life History

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

Weight

11400

Conservation Status

NatureServe Global Status Rank

Global Status Last Reviewed

2005-03-07

Global Status Last Changed

1996-11-18

Distribution

Conservation Status Map

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

Global Range Description

20,000-2,500,000 square km (about 8000-1,000,000 square miles)

ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.101705