Melogale personataBurmese ferret-badger

Ge­o­graphic Range

The range of the Mel­o­gale per­son­ata in­cludes Nepal, north-east­ern India, Myan­mar (for­mally Burma), south­ern most provinces of China, Viet­nam, Laos, Thai­land, Cam­bo­dia (Jack­son 2001). A sub­species of M. per­son­ata, Mel­o­gale per­son­ata ori­en­talis, is found on the In­done­sian is­land of Java (Col­ijn 2000).

Habi­tat

The Burmese fer­ret bad­ger is a ter­res­trial species that can live in forests, sa­van­nas, or grass­lands (Nowak & Par­adiso 1983).

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Burmese fer­ret bad­gers are small weigh­ing be­tween 1 and 3 kg at ma­tu­rity. Mel­o­gale per­son­ata have an elon­gated body that can reach a head and body length rang­ing from 330 mm to 430 mm long. They have bushy tails be­tween 150 mm to 230 mm long. Their legs re­sem­ble a typ­i­cal bad­ger be­cause they are short with broad paws and large claws used in dig­ging. Mel­o­gale per­son­ata, like all fer­ret bad­gers, have par­tially webbed toes and ridges on the pads of their feet. These char­ac­ter­is­tics are be­lieved to be adap­ta­tions for climb­ing. Mel­o­gale per­son­ata have gray­ish to brown­ish fur with a lighter fur on their un­der­side. They have white heads with black mark­ings in­clud­ing a black band across their muz­zle and an­other across the fore­head be­tween their ears. Burmese fer­ret bad­gers have thin­ner black stripes on their face than the Chi­nese fer­ret bad­ger. The white dor­sal stripe of the Burmese fer­ret bad­ger runs from its head to the base of the tail. This dis­tin­guishes it from the Chi­nese fer­ret bad­ger be­cause in the Chi­nese species the dor­sal stripe does not reach the base of the tail (Jack­son 2001).

  • Range mass
    1 to 3 kg
    2.20 to 6.61 lb
  • Range length
    330 to 430 mm
    12.99 to 16.93 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Re­searchers in Thai­land re­proted the av­er­age lit­ter size of M. per­son­ata is 3 cubs. Burmese fer­ret bad­gers are born in bur­rows, just be­fore the rainy sea­son. They are fed in the bur­row for two to three weeks by their mother. Be­yond this vir­tu­ally noth­ing is known about the re­pro­duc­tive cycle and life his­tory of M. per­son­ata (Pei & Wang 1995).

  • Average number of offspring
    3
  • Average number of offspring
    3
    AnAge

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Burmese fer­ret bad­gers have lived ten years in cap­tiv­ity. How­ever, there are no data on the lifes­pan of Burmese fer­ret bad­gers in the wild (Jack­son 2001).

  • Range lifespan
    Status: captivity
    10 (high) years

Be­hav­ior

Burmese fer­ret bad­gers are pri­mar­ily noc­tur­nal. How­ever, they have lim­ited day ac­tiv­ity usu­ally fo­cused around dawn and dusk and last­ing no more than a few hours (Jack­son 2001). Mel­o­gale per­son­ata spend most of the day sleep­ing in a bur­row or nat­ural shel­ter. They do not dig their own holes to cre­ate bur­rows, in­stead they use pre­ex­ist­ing bur­rows. In­for­ma­tion is lim­ited re­gard­ing fer­ret bad­gers' so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tions, home ranges and ter­ri­to­ries. One study showed male fer­ret bad­gers have home ranges that are large enough to en­com­pass the ranges of sev­eral fe­males, ap­prox­i­mately 4 to 9 hectares. Re­searchers have sug­gested that mem­bers of the genus Mel­o­gale are soli­tary ex­cept dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son, but more re­search is needed to fur­ther un­der­stand the so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion and re­pro­duc­tive be­hav­ior (Jack­son 2001).

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Food Habits

The Burmese fer­ret bad­ger for­ages pri­mar­ily on the ground, but they do spend some time in trees hunt­ing in­sects and snails. Mel­o­gale per­son­ata has larger teeth than the other Mel­o­gale species. The mas­sive teeth of M. per­son­ata are thought to be an adap­ta­tion for crush­ing hard shelled in­sects and mol­lusks (pri­mar­ily snails). The Burmese fer­ret bad­ger also eats cock­roaches, grasshop­pers, and earth­worms. They also prey upon small mam­mals, in­clud­ing young rats, frogs, toads, small lizards, car­rion, small birds, bird eggs, plant mat­ter, and fruit (Jack­son 2001).

  • Animal Foods
  • mammals
  • amphibians
  • reptiles
  • eggs
  • carrion
  • insects
  • terrestrial non-insect arthropods
  • mollusks
  • terrestrial worms
  • Plant Foods
  • leaves
  • fruit

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Lep­cha and Bho­tia peo­ples in north­east India keep M. per­son­ata in their homes to con­trol cock­roaches and other in­sect and ro­dent pests. M. per­son­ata is hunted and trapped in south­east Asia. Like all fer­ret bad­gers, the Burmese fer­ret bad­ger is used as a source of food, fur, and med­i­cines by the local peo­ple (Jack­son 2001).

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Bad­gers in­clud­ing M. per­son­ata are sus­pected to be able to trans­mit tu­ber­cu­lo­sis (TB) to cat­tle; how­ever, re­search has not been able to de­ter­mine how this may take place (Hutchin­son 2000).

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Al­though M. per­son­ata is not cur­rently listed as threat­ened or en­dan­gered, habi­tat de­struc­tion and degra­da­tion due to high rates of de­for­esta­tion in its range could be a sig­nif­i­cant threat to its sur­vival and suc­cess. Mel­o­gale per­son­ata ori­en­talis, a sub­species of M. per­son­ata, is de­scribed as low risk - near threat­ened, mean­ing they are close to being con­sid­ered vul­ner­a­ble and may need fu­ture con­ser­va­tion at­ten­tion (Col­ijn 2000).

Other Com­ments

Mel­o­gale per­son­ata was first de­scribed in 1831 by Ge­of­froy Saint-Hi­laire (Mam­mal Species of the World, 1993).

Con­trib­u­tors

Rosie Clarke (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Kate Teeter (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Glossary

bilateral symmetry

having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.

carrion

flesh of dead animals.

chemical

uses smells or other chemicals to communicate

drug

a substance used for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease

endothermic

animals that use metabolically generated heat to regulate body temperature independently of ambient temperature. Endothermy is a synapomorphy of the Mammalia, although it may have arisen in a (now extinct) synapsid ancestor; the fossil record does not distinguish these possibilities. Convergent in birds.

fertilization

union of egg and spermatozoan

food

A substance that provides both nutrients and energy to a living thing.

forest

forest biomes are dominated by trees, otherwise forest biomes can vary widely in amount of precipitation and seasonality.

iteroparous

offspring are produced in more than one group (litters, clutches, etc.) and across multiple seasons (or other periods hospitable to reproduction). Iteroparous animals must, by definition, survive over multiple seasons (or periodic condition changes).

motile

having the capacity to move from one place to another.

native range

the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.

nocturnal

active during the night

omnivore

an animal that mainly eats all kinds of things, including plants and animals

oriental

found in the oriental region of the world. In other words, India and southeast Asia.

World Map

seasonal breeding

breeding is confined to a particular season

sexual

reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female

solitary

lives alone

tactile

uses touch to communicate

terrestrial

Living on the ground.

viviparous

reproduction in which fertilization and development take place within the female body and the developing embryo derives nourishment from the female.

Ref­er­ences

1993. "Mam­mal Species Of The World (MSW) Sci­en­tific Names" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 19, 2001 at http://​www.​nmnh.​si.​edu/​cgi-bin/​wdb/​msw/​names/​query/​12221.

Col­ijn, E. Jan­u­ary 2000. "IUCN MAM­MAL RED LIST IN­DONE­SIA" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 19, 2001 at http://​users.​bart.​nl/​~ed­col­ijn/redlistm.​html.

Hutchin­son, 2000. "Bad­ger" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 20, 2001 at http://​ebooks.​whsmithonline.​co.​uk/​htmldata/​ency.​asp?​mainpage=HTTP://​EBOOKS.​WHSMITHONLINE.​CO.​UK/​ENCYCLOPEDIA/​23/​M0007423.​HTM.

Jack­son, S. Oc­to­ber 10, 2001. "Bad­ger Pages: The Fer­ret Bad­gers" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 10, 2001 at http://​www.​badgers.​org.​uk.

Nowak, R., J. Par­adiso. 1983. Walker's Mam­mals of the World. Bal­ti­more: Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press.

Pei, K., Y. Wang. 1995. Some Ob­ser­va­tions on the Re­pro­duc­tion of the Tai­wan Fer­ret Bad­ger (*Mel­o­gale moschata sub­au­ran­ti­aca*) in South­ern Tai­wan. Zo­o­log­i­cal Stud­ies, 33: 34.