蜜獾
出自維基百科，自由嘅百科全書
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請撳 Wikipedia:翻譯/蜜獾，去整翻譯請求。(翻譯指引) |
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 蜜獾
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| Mellivora capensis (Schreber, 1776) |
蜜獾（Mellivora capensis）係一挺貓科動物，「蜜獾亞科」同「蜜獾屬」入便就得佢哋呢一個種。非洲嘅大部分地區、亞洲嘅伊朗東部、伊拉克南部、巴基斯坦同印度西部都有蜜獾分佈。咁多年嚟，佢哋一路喼著健力士世界紀錄嘅「最大膽動物」紀錄[2]。出名咁膽大，搞到好少動物園願意收養佢哋。
目錄 |
[編輯] 解剖學
蜜獾體型較獾（Meles meles）細。They are heavily built, with a broad head, small eyes, virtually no external ears, and a relatively blunt snout. The head-and-body length ranges from 60 to 102 cm, plus a tail of 16 to 30 cm. The animal's height at the shoulder can be from 23 to 30 cm. There is a considerable difference between the sizes of the male and female, with males sometimes weighing up to twice as much as females. The weight range for females is 5 to 10 kg, while males range from 9 to 14 kg.
[編輯] 行為
The honey badger is usually found in arid grasslands and savannahs. Honey badgers are fierce carnivores with an extremely keen sense of smell. They are well known for their snake killing abilities, by which they will grab a snake behind the head in its jaws and kill it. Honey badgers can devour an entire snake (150 cm/5ft or less) in 15 minutes.
Honey badgers have a great appetite for beehives. There have been cases of dead honey badgers being found stung to death within the hives they were trying to eat[需要參考資料]. Commercial honey producers do not take kindly to this destruction and sometimes shoot, trap, or poison honey badgers they suspect of damaging their hives, although ratel-proof commercial bee hives have been developed.
Some sources say that a bird, the honeyguide, has a habit of leading honey badgers and other large mammals to bees' nests. When a honey badger breaks into the nest, the birds take their share too. Other sources say that honeyguides are only known to guide humans; see Greater Honeyguide[需要參考資料].
喺蜜獾嘅地頭，佢係至得人驚嘅捕食動物。黃䘆、白蟻、蠍子、箭豬、野兔呢啲嘢佢經常捉嚟食；再大啲嘅，好似龜、大到一公尺咁上下嘅鱷魚，仲有各種蛇，包括大蟒蛇、毒蛇，等等等等，一樣捉嚟就食[3]。佢膽大包天又兇殘犀利，大佢唔知幾多嘅動物都照樣攻擊。
2002年國家地理頻道拍咗部紀錄片，個名叫「蛇嘅殺手：喀拉哈里沙漠嘅蜜獾」。呢部片入便，一隻叫「奇離文（Kleinman）」嘅蜜獾同蛇掙食。佢響蛇個口入便搶走食物，就響嘶嘶聲叫緊嘅蛇面前好隨便噉慢慢食咗落去。跟著佢又去捉嗰條蛇嚟食。條叫做「鼓腹噝蝰（Bitis arietans）」嘅毒蛇係佢最鍾意食嘅毒蛇之一。佢咬死咗條蛇，開始食。同蛇搏鬥嗰陣，佢亦都畀條蛇咬嚫。奇離文響條死蛇側邊暈到...兩粒鐘之後，佢又醒返，爬起身，等麻痹過咗之後，繼續食嗰條蛇，跟著再去捕食[4]。呢挺兇殘大膽嘅天性令到蜜獾獲得超強敵手嘅形象。
蜜獾仲識掘啲小型囓齒動物嘅洞穴，㧸佢哋出嚟，捉住打下牙祭。蜜獾嘅前爪好大，掘洞穴相當有效。啲洞穴入便有囓齒動物嘅話，一般嚟講佢哋都會成功。不過都蜜獾都仲係有麻煩嘢，就係，第啲動物驚佢，知到佢呢招犀利，所以啲肉食鳥同豺就乾脆經常響蜜獾掘嗰陣時喺佢側邊及住，搵時機偷蜜獾㧸出洞穴驚到四位亂咁踵嘅囓齒動物。
Honey badgers are also very intelligent animals. They are one of the few animals capable of using tools. In the 1997 documentary series Land of the Tiger, a honey badger in India was caught on film making use of a tool. The animal rolled a log and stood on it to reach a kingfisher fledgling stuck up in the roots coming from the ceiling in an underground cave.[5]
The honey badger is predominantly solitary and, although small family groups of up to three individuals are occasionally seen. They are nomadic and range over huge areas, which for an adult male may be as large as 600km2.[6]
[編輯] 捕食
Adult honey badgers rarely serve as prey for lions and leopards; their ferocity and thick, loose skin makes it difficult to grip or suffocate them. Old, weak honey badgers are more likely to fall prey to leopards, lions, and pythons, but even old honey badgers will defend themselves as vigorously as possible. In one case, shown on a television program[需要參考資料] on Animal Planet, an old female honey badger that was nearly toothless and blind in one eye was attacked by a leopard. It took the leopard approximately one hour to kill the honeybadger.
[編輯] 繁殖
Once a female honey badger comes into heat, courtship is very energetic. After days of deliberation, a male is accepted as a mating partner, and the honey badgers will remain in a burrow for 3-4 days of mating. The female badger will give birth to a cub 2 months later. A honey badger cub is almost a complete replica of its mother, and as it grows, it learns to be aggressive to any other creature (e.g., curious jackals) as it travels across the desert. It relies on its mother for food and shelter as they regularly move and she digs new burrows. Cubs can handicap a honey badger's hunting; therefore, they are usually left back at the den, where they can be vulnerable. It has been documented that other honey badgers will drag cubs from their dens and eat them. Due in part to cannibalistic threats such as this, only half of honey badger cubs will live to adulthood.
As the cub grows up, its ability to navigate the tough terrain of the desert improves by learning from its mother to not only walk, but to also climb trees and to chase snakes. The honey badger is not born with these vital skills for survival, they must be learned.
Once a mother comes back into heat and is ready to rear another cub, the other cub is old enough and skilled enough to survive alone, so it makes its own way in the world, leaving its mother behind. This happens a few months after the cub has been born.
[編輯] 保護
Regardless of its fierce temperament, the honey badger's low birth rate makes it extremely vulnerable to hunting and habitat destruction. They are often scorned and hunted by farmers who own commercial beehives and believe this animal to be a threat to their livelihoods. Many honey badgers are killed by farmers or stung to death by bees after becoming snared in a hive trap. [7]
[編輯] Urban legend
- 內文： Killer badger
The Killer badger is a creature found in a number of modern urban myths from Basra (Al Basrah) province, Iraq, where it was said to have attacked both people and livestock. It has since been identified as the honey badger, inflated by rumor. [8][9][10][11]
[編輯] 引用
- ↑ Template:IUCN2008 Database entry includes a brief justification of why this species is of least concern
- ↑ Most fearless animal on Animal of the Day
- ↑ Honey badger (Mellivora capensis): Food and feeding behaviour
- ↑ More info on the documentary Snake killers: Honey badgers of the Kalahari
- ↑ India Land of the Tiger பாகம் 4 - ஆங்கிலம்
- ↑ Piper, Ross (2007), Extraordinary Animals: An Encyclopedia of Curious and Unusual Animals, Greenwood Press.
- ↑ Piper, Ross (2007), Extraordinary Animals: An Encyclopedia of Curious and Unusual Animals, Greenwood Press.
- ↑ Weaver, Matthew (2007-07-12), "Basra badger rumour mill", The Guardian (2007-07-16)
- ↑ Philp, Catherine (2007-07-12), "Bombs, guns, gangs - now Basra falls prey to the monster badger", The Times (2007-07-16)
- ↑ Baker, Graeme (2007-07-13), "British troops blamed for badger plague" The Telegraph (2007-07-16)
- ↑ BBC News (2007-07-12) "British blamed for Basra badgers", BBC (2007-07-16)
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