Pictures worth a thousand words for conspicuous colouration in the honey badger

(writing in progress)

The honey badger (Mellivora capensis) is possibly the largest-bodied aposematic mammal (after the giant panda) in the sense of warning colouration at the whole-body scale.

Regardless of the true explanation for why the honey badger is aposematic, there is the question of illustrating the situational conspicuousness of this warning colouration in photos. And, although I have been sifting through photos of this species for several years, I’ve never previously found as good a photo as that below, in illustration of the ‘contrived conspicuousness’ of the animal in a wide-enough view of its real habitat. This photo was, of course, taken purely by accident, the photographer no doubt having no concept of aposematism. However, it just so happens that this turns out to be a once-in-a-lifetime depiction of the largest and one of the most puzzling cases of mammalian aposematism.

However, this aposematic pattern has yet to be full explained, because aposematism is usually associated with a non-apparent defensive capability. In the case of the honey badger, noxiousness (along the lines of skunks) is not particularly well-developed, making it an unconvincing explanation for the skunk-like tonal contrast. The honey badger is notoriously defensive and tough in battle, but this too fails to provide a convincing explanation for the warning colouration for the simple reason that the scrappiness of the animal can easily be conveyed by physical threats including fang-baring and growling. For these reasons I have hypothesised that the real non-apparent defensive capability of which the colouration of the honey badger warns is the extremely loose but tough skin, within which the embattled animal can swivel so freely that it can manage to bite the face of a large carnivore even as that aggressor has it firmly by the nape.

https://www.superstock.com/asset/honey-badger-mellivora-capensis-running-deception-valley-central-kalahari-game/4201-22115330

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/71153814

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/57425653

Earlier, I predicted that the honey badger will be found to prey on the African porcupine, as a consequence of the relative imperviousness of the tough skin of the honey badger to the quills of the porcupine.
 
Here’s photo-confirmation that such predation does in fact occur: https://www.trackingthewild.com/blogs/post/Honey-badger-kills-porcupine-the-spoils-of-victory/
 
This incident shows clear evidence that the honey badger did not come away unscathed. It is clearly shown that at least one large quill did manage to impale the honey badger, and because the quills are designed gradually to work their way deeper this did not bode well for the subsequent health of this predator. But it remains remarkable that the honey badger can kill the African porcupine given that their body masses are similar and that the porcupine is extremely defended.
 
I suspect that, in time, it will be shown that the honey badger routinely preys on the African porcupine, more or less whenever the two species cross paths. Such dramas would, I think, have been routine on the Cape Peninsula, where both species occur(red) naturally, and for all we know they continue today. I wonder when a honey badger was last seen on the Cape Peninsula?
 
The two species, photographed together here, make an interesting study in black-and-white aposematism.
 
I’ve always regarded the colouration of the African porcupine as aposematic but now that I think on this more deeply I see a theoretical problem: the spines are obvious and so the warning colouration seems not to be telling of a hidden/non-apparent defences, as I’ve theorised it should. Perhaps the function of the black-and-white banding is to ensure that a predator sees the full size of the quills regardless of conditions of illumination?
 
If so, I suspect that we may need to invent a new word for this particular type of warning colouration. I suspect that the honey badger is classically aposematic (based on the hidden weapon of tough and flexible skin) but that the African porcupine needs to have its warning colouration described by a different, new term in parallel with what we’ve been calling warpaint colouration in felids – in which the defences, again, are visible but accentuated by the way the colouration emphasises the fang-baring expression. The porcupine does not have warpaint colouration but what does it have, then?
  
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MX6mw95atEE/S6YXFl7xSfI/AAAAAAAAAe8/2Eq9Q1c79OM/s400/13+Badger+meets+Porcupine+a.jpg
 
(writing in progress)

Posted on June 10, 2022 10:23 PM by milewski