Animal · Germany, United Kingdom, France
European badger
Meles meles — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The European badger is a stocky, black-and-white striped mammal that digs huge underground burrow systems called setts. It lives across forests and farmland throughout Europe.
Picture credit: Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0) · caroline legg (CC BY 2.0) · caroline legg (CC BY 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the european badger live?
Home: Forests, hedgerows and farmland across Europe.
In the wild you find it in: Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Netherlands, Switzerland.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown it measures up to 90 cm long, plus a 20 cm tail. It weighs about 11 kilograms. On the menu: both plants and meat.
The story behind it
A badger sett can be used by many generations of the same family for over a hundred years, growing into a huge maze of tunnels with dozens of entrances and separate rooms for sleeping and raising cubs. Badgers are among the strongest diggers in Europe, with powerful front claws that can shift heavy soil quickly. They are mostly nocturnal and use their excellent sense of smell, rather than eyesight, to find earthworms, their favourite food, sometimes eating hundreds in a single night. Badger clans, called cetes, groom each other closely to strengthen social bonds. Thanks to legal protection in many countries, European badger populations are stable and widespread today.
Find it on the globe
European badger is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How big can a badger's burrow get?
A badger's underground home, called a sett, can grow into a huge network with dozens of entrances, tunnels and separate chambers, sometimes used by generations of the same family for over a century.
What do badgers eat?
Badgers eat mostly earthworms, sometimes hundreds in one night, along with insects, fruit, roots and occasionally small mammals. Their excellent sense of smell helps them locate food underground in the dark.
Are badgers dangerous?
Badgers are generally shy and avoid people, coming out mostly at night, but they can defend themselves fiercely with strong claws and jaws if cornered or threatened. Attacks on humans are very rare.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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