Wednesday, February 06, 2008

The Most Dangerous Animal Known To Man

Don't be fooled - this thing will kill you.
According to Jack Handey, the most dangerous animal in the world is not an alligator or a polar bear, but "a shark riding an elephant, trampling and eating everything they see."
Well, according to the management of this website, the most dangerous animal on earth is the honey badger. About the size of a dog, don't let the precocious badger fool you. Under that loose, thick hide lies natural selection at it's most ruthlessly efficient.
The honey badger takes on snakes, rats, birds, bees - anything it can possibly eat. Because of its tough-as-nails reputation, the honey badger has virtually no predators. In fact, even old honey badgers are no easy target for lions or leopards.
When we read the wikipedia article on this fierce little creature, we were stunned. Here are the highlights:
Found in the Kalahari desert, honey badgers are fierce carnivores with an extremely keen sense of smell. They are well known for their snake killing abilities, by which they will grab a snake behind the head in its jaws and kill it. A honey badger can devour an entire snake (150 cm/5ft or less) in 15 minutes.
If bitten the honey badger will become severely swollen and paralysed, unable to move for two to three hours. After this period of time the honey badger will re-awaken and continue with its meal or continue its journey. Even more tenaciously, a honey badger will gladly steal a snake's kill, eat it for itself then continue to hunt the snake. This ferocious nature of the badger has earned it its image as a formidable creature.
Honey badgers are also very intelligent animals. They are one of the few animals capable of using tools. In a documentary film Land of the Tiger, a honey badger in India was caught on film making use of a tool.

Holy crap.

There are even urban legends from parts of Iran about the badger attacking livestock and even people. While we still maintain that the large, solitary bull moose is a very, very, very dangerous animal, we might have just found one who is just as insane. Weighing just 30 pounds, this little fireball of terror is crazy enough to take on just about anything. What balls! No wonder this animal is in the Guiness Book of World Records as the most fearless animal in the world.

Footage of the honey badger doing what it does best - kicking ass:

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