---
title: "European Badger (Meles meles) | AnimalTracks.wiki"
description: "Nocturnal digger with a striped face, sharp claws and a network of underground tunnels."
image: "https://animaltracks.wiki/images/animals/european-badger-1.webp"
published: "2026-09-01"
updated: "2026-09-27"
---
# European Badger (*Meles meles*)
> **Status**: Checked against 8 sources, listed under Sources below.
> **Tagline**: Nocturnal digger with a striped face, sharp claws and a network of underground tunnels.
> **Soundtrack Vibe**: Art Punk & Experimental Post-Punk // The Fall, "Totally Wired"
> **Soundtrack Links**: [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/6mDlskDqoyxOGaBQA5ws6C) | [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R26AwWdQyHU)
> **Vibe Match**: Jangling, manic post-punk at full tilt, for a badger that radio collars showed active in one long bout each night, about 8.2 hours on average.
## Biological Superpowers & Stats
- **Taxonomy**: *Meles meles*
- **Danger Level**: Medium
- **Conservation Status**: Least Concern ([IUCN Red List](https://doi.org/10.2305/iucn.uk.2025-1.rlts.t29673a215859004.en))
- **Superpower**: Sharp claws ideal for digging setts, underground homes the badger cleans by dragging old bedding out under its chin.
- **Habitat**: Deciduous, conifer or mixed woodland beside open fields, plus hedges, farmland and grassland, from Ireland and Spain to Japan
- **Diet**: Earthworms, insects, small mammals, hedgehogs, fruit, and roots
- **Tags**: mustelid, woodland, omnivore, nocturnal, burrower
## Natural History & Behavior
## Digging In For Good
The European badger (*Meles meles*) is the UK's biggest land predator, typically weighing 10 to 12 kg with a body length of about 90 cm. Across its range, from Ireland and Spain to Russia, China and Japan, females weigh 6.6 to 13.9 kg and males 9.1 to 16.7 kg. Its sharp claws are ideal for digging setts, communal burrows excavated in soft earth, sometimes at the base of a tree. The main sett generally holds many of a group's adults, while younger badgers tend to live in smaller outlying setts. A badger keeps house too, dragging old bedding of hay, bracken and grass out under its chin, which prevents a build-up of fleas and lice. The oldest known wild badger reached 14, though few exceed 6. In captivity, one lived 18.6 years.
## An Earthworm Habit
Roughly 80 percent of a badger's diet is earthworms, and it can eat hundreds of them in a single night. When worms are scarce it turns to voles and rabbits, and it is the main predator of hedgehogs in the UK. It also eats beetles, caterpillars and wasp nests, mice and rats, and carrion, occasionally taking birds and frogs, along with fruit such as pears, plums, blackberries and elderberries, plus acorns, cereals and, occasionally, fungi.
## Family Politics, Underground
Social groups can hold anywhere from 2 to 23 badgers, though around four to seven is typical in the UK. Usually a single dominant female breeds, and she has been known to kill cubs born to other females in the group. Mating can happen in any month, but after mating comes delayed implantation, governed partly by day length and temperature, so UK cubs are not born until January or February regardless of when mating happened.
> **Pregnant and Pregnant Again** A pregnant female badger can conceive again, an ability called superfetation. As a result, litters with more than one father are not uncommon.
Badgers defecate, urinate and scent mark at latrines, and use them to mark territorial boundaries. In one study, boundary latrines were larger and more consistently used than those nearer the middle, differences that could be explained by visits from more than one social group. Males visited boundary latrines considerably more often than females, which the authors suggest works at least partly as mate-guarding, deterring neighbouring males from entering the territory to mate.
## Nights, Winters and a Cattle Feud
In Poland's Białowieża Forest, radio-collared badgers were nocturnal with one long bout of activity, emerging on average at 19:00 and returning at 03:42, for about 8.2 hours a night. They built fat reserves in autumn, nearly doubling their spring body mass, and stayed inactive for an average of 96 days each winter. A 2000 review concluded that badgers are well adapted as the primary host of bovine tuberculosis in parts of Britain and much of Ireland. England introduced licensed badger culling in 2013 to control TB in cattle, and a study of the first cull zones found its effect varied between areas. Historical persecution means badgers are now fully protected by law in the UK, which has helped the population roughly double since the 1980s.
## Frequently Asked Questions
### How many cubs does a badger have, and how fast do they grow up?
A typical litter is about three cubs, though litters of one to six happen. Cubs emerge from the sett around 8 to 10 weeks after birth, are weaned by roughly 2.5 months, and reach sexual maturity at about a year old. *(Source: [Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan]())*
### Does culling badgers actually lower bovine TB in cattle?
The effect has varied between areas. A study compared England's first three licensed cull zones with matched comparison areas. Cattle TB incidence was about two-thirds lower in Gloucestershire and about a third lower in Somerset after four years of culling, but no different in Dorset after two. *(Source: [Downs et al. 2019]())*
### How much land does one badger clan control?
It depends on food quality and abundance, and on how much ground is suitable for digging setts. A territory can cover as little as 2,500 square metres, a quarter of a hectare, or as much as a few square kilometres, and home ranges tend to be larger when food is scarce. *(Source: [Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan]())*
## Sources
1. [Badger (Meles meles). Woodland Trust.]()
2. [Meles meles (European badger). AnAge: The Animal Ageing and Longevity Database, Build 15.]()
3. [Meles meles (Eurasian badger). Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan.]()
4. [Abramov (2025). Meles meles. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2025: e.T29673A215859004.]()
5. [Roper et al. (1993). Territorial Marking With Faeces in Badgers (Meles Meles): a Comparison of Boundary and Hinterland Latrine Use. Behaviour.]()
6. [Kowalczyk, Jȩdrzejewska & Zalewski (2003). Annual and circadian activity patterns of badgers (Meles meles) in Białowieża Primeval Forest (eastern Poland) compared with other Palaearctic populations. Journal of Biogeography.]()
7. [Gallagher & Clifton-Hadley (2000). Tuberculosis in badgers; a review of the disease and its significance for other animals. Research in Veterinary Science.]()
8. [Downs et al. (2019). Assessing effects from four years of industry-led badger culling in England on the incidence of bovine tuberculosis in cattle, 2013–2017. Scientific Reports.]()
*Published September 1, 2026. Last updated September 27, 2026.*
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