In Search of Tigers, India Trail Cam Captures Something Rarer

For the first time in this part of the world, scientists say they’ve captured trail-cam footage of a rare honey badger (Mellivora capensis). In fact, the trail cams, which researchers originally placed to survey tigers in India’s Simlipal Tiger Reserve, spotted two honey badgers.

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Scientists recently published the trail-cam photos in a scientific journal along with discussion about why the honey badger sightings from Tarai East Forest Division of Uttarakhand, India are important. Researchers say there’s a lack of in-depth ecological understanding about this species in the Asian portion of its range. (Honey badgers live in Africa, southwestern Asia, and in the Indian subcontinent.)

The researchers call honey badgers “rare” and note that their trail-cam sightings from January this year represent “the first known camera-trap records of this species” in the Tarai East Forest Division. These small mammals may not be the tigers the researchers were initially looking to document, but they’re fierce predators in their own right.

Honey badgers do insane things like eat king cobras, invade bee hives, and take on animals they have no business taking on, like African lions. These small but mighty mammals are built to fight, and they do it with swagger.

See a rare honey badger caught on a trail cam in India here:

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