Animal Diversity Web

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).

• Biogeographic Regions
• oriental
  • native

Habi­tat

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

• Habitat Regions
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest

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).

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• 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).

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
• viviparous

• 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).

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• nocturnal
• motile
• solitary

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

• Perception Channels
• tactile
• chemical

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).

• Primary Diet
• omnivore

• 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).

• Positive Impacts
• food
• source of medicine or drug
• controls pest population

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).

• IUCN Red List

  Data Deficient
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Data Deficient
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

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.

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.