As quite powerful and successful mustelids, both wolverines and honey badgers are often compared in terms of their strengths and physical abilities.
If you have landed on this article, then you are most probably interested in this subject and are curious to know who would emerge as victorious if there were to be a battle of wolverine vs honey badger.
Both of these animals are very well-known as ferocious animals who can even kill humans quite easily.
Today we will be looking at these wild animals as their own, and then we will be taking a look at how different they are. Most importantly, we will discuss the outcome if these two were to have a duel! So, without any further blabbering, let us get right into the article.
What Is A Wolverine?
Wolverine is known by several names, which include: Gulo gulo, glutton, carcajou, and quickhatch. This animal falls in the category of mustelids, although it looks quite different from most of the members of the mustelid family.
It looks quite like a small bear, and adult wolverines weigh between 9 to 25 kilograms and have a lifespan of 5 to 13 years. They are very tough animals, stay alone, and travel long distances of up to 15 miles for hunting every day!
They have a very thick brow fur with a few yellow stripes. For ease of climbing, even in icy areas, their feet are wide and are webbed. Additionally, their front five-toed feet have sharp and long claws, which help them tremendously for hunting.
Their limbs are quite short, but they are very muscular like their entire body, which is the reason for their bear-like strength. Similar to its legs, it also has a small rounded head and tiny eyes. The total length of adult wolverines, including their tail, ranges from 65 to 110 cm.
In nature, this animal is absolutely fearless and cunning. In fact, no animals besides humans hunt for wolverines; fascinating, right? They hunt on animals, including deers, elks, sheep, caribou, even small bears, and any more animals.
Wolverines often make their way to cabins and finish all the food stock of the cabin. Since this animal is ferocious, humans should keep an eye out for them and be careful. They usually reside in the chilly northern latitudes, more specifically in timbered places.
When they arrive, they spread a distinctly unpleasant smell that comes from a liquid that is secreted from their anal glands. This scent marks their territory, and for male wolverines, this is a way to attract the females in the area for mating.
What Is A Honey Badger?
Honey badgers are mammals that are commonly known as ratels. They generally roam areas around Southwest Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and even Africa. Although it has a ‘badger’ in its name, it is much more identical to features of weasels.
It has quite thick and loose skin, and its body is flat and long with their lengths ranging between 55 – 77 cm, and they have a height of 23 to 28 cm. Although their legs are very short, they are quite sturdy, which is very useful for traveling in search of food.
Adult male honey badgers weigh between 9 and 16 kilograms, while adult females weigh from 5 to 10 kilograms.
They have claws on all of their limbs, but their foreclaws are much longer and stronger for hunting purposes.
In addition to that, their teeth are very sharp for them to bite and drag their prey easily. While this ferocious little beast is known for hunting its prey, it also eats up the remains of prey on larger animals.
Most of the time, honey badgers are seen roaming around alone, but they are often seen with their mates. This animal has black and grey fur, with white fur on its entire back, and its tail is made of long strands of its hair.
The ‘honey’ in their name comes because they hunt on bee larvae. They can easily withstand bee stings thanks to their very thick skin. Fun fact: their skin is so thick they can also withstand dog bites!
Honey badgers are also unaffected by the venom of snakes, which gives them some more longevity. In captivity, honey badgers have an average lifetime of 24 years which is pretty long actually for a ferocious like it.
To shoo away other animals, it has a gland below its tail which releases a foul-smelling odor known as a “stink bomb”. You may find the smell is similar to the ones released by skunks, but it doesn’t stick for as long.
It is not easy to find another animal as aggressive as the honey badger in nature. These omnivorous beasts feast on basically everything! They feed on both small and large mammals, birds, reptiles, and even insects. Additionally, honey badgers also indulge in some vegetables and fruits.
Honey Badger Vs Wolverine
We’ll pit honey badger and wolverine against each other in this section.
Strength
The wolverine generally weighs much more between these two animals and even is larger than the honey badger. The wolverine has a unique set of teeth with their molars reversed by 90 degrees; this makes them better for crushing bones.
Also, the teeth of the wolverine are overall stronger and larger than the honey badgers, and it even has stronger jaw muscles. This means the bite from a wolverine is considered far more deadly, although both of their bites are more than capable of causing significant damage to most animals.
However, you should note that the fighting abilities of a wolverine do not match as high as that of a tiger, leopard, or North American porcupine.
So, all this means that there is in no way that the bite of honey badger would be able to kill the wolverine.
Skin
After saying all that, we must mention although wolverines have stronger teeth, honey badgers have much thicker skin which means it is very difficult for any predator to tear through its skin, and it can take hours to do so.
As mentioned before, the honey badger has loose skin, which allows them to twist in it easily; this works as an advantage when it comes to defending themselves. Although the honey badger may have thicker skin, wolverines also have quite thick skin, and it works as to their great advantage in combat with other predators.
When attacked, it is often seen if the honey badger’s attacking features do not stack up to the larger predator, so it usually makes a run after the predator spends hours trying to kill it. Both of these animals have a foul scent, with honey badger having its “stink bomb”, and the wolverine with its spray of unpleasant-smelling liquid.
Stamina
Both of these animals have a lot of stamina and are fierce. In a fight, they do not give up easily. Oftentimes, it is seen that the honey badger runs from the predator and hides until the predator goes away. Meanwhile, the wolverine often fights with predators till its own death.
Weakness
While both the honey badger and the wolverine are much stronger than most animals in nature, they share a common witness. Both of these animals will feast on anything they get. This greedy behavior that these animals share can easily put them in danger.
They have a tendency to overstuff themselves to the point it becomes incredibly difficult for them to be moving properly.
As a result, this can bring their defense down by a lot. When they are overstuffed, they tend to avoid any sort of fighting with other animals and tend to stay alone.
Quite oddly, it has been seen and recorded on some rare occasions that wolverines ate so much that it resulted in their death. Honey badgers are often found in the exact same scenario.
Verdict: Who Would Win?
After discussing so many characters of the wolverine vs honey badger, we have multiple possible outcomes. Firstly, it could take the wolverine too long to cut through the honey badger’s skin so the honey badger could escape by making a run and hiding.
Honey badgers often attack the genitals of animals, so it is possible that it could attack the wolverine’s genitals so much so it could be ripped off. As a result, the wolverine would bleed so much that it would ultimately die.
As we have mentioned previously in this article, both of these animals have a lot of stamina and are very resilient. Therefore, another possible outcome could be that both of them could die after fighting for hours.
Some may wonder whether the wolverine could suffocate the honey badger while trying to bite its way through its thick skin with the wolverine’s powerful jaws. However, this outcome is very unlikely to happen as this is not seen even when the honey badger comes into battle with bigger animals such as leopards and lions.
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