The Honey Badger (Mellivora capensis) is also known as the Ratel in Southern Africa and belongs to the mammal family that includes badgers and weasels. Honey Badgers have a low slung, thickset body with powerful jaws and teeth and very strong claws used for digging. Its skin is very loose and this allows it to twist freely within it, enabling it to severely injure attackers, even when held in their jaws. They are famous for their strength, toughness and ferocity.

Honey Badgers mostly live solitary lives, although pairs may hunt together in the breeding season. They are skilled diggers, but also use burrows dug by other animals. They have a varied diet that includes honey, berries, roots, vegetables, insects, scorpions and other invertebrates, eggs, reptiles, birds and small mammals. In populated areas they may pose a nuisance, raiding garbage bins and stealing poultry.

This older male Honey Badger was using his keen sense of smell to locate buried prey in the Kruger Park bush. When he located a food item he dug it up quickly, chewed then swallowed it.