Stink badger
Genus of carnivores / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stink badgers or false badgers are the species of the genus Mydaus of the skunk family of carnivorans, the Mephitidae. They resemble the better-known members of the family Mustelidae also termed 'badgers' (which are themselves a polyphyletic group). There are only two extant species – the Palawan stink badger or pantot (M. marchei), and the Sunda stink badger or teledu (M. javanensis). They live west of the Wallace Line; the Sunda species on islands of the Greater Sunda Islands, being Sumatra, Java, and Borneo; in Borneo the badger is found in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. The Palawan species lives in the Philippine island of Palawan as well as the islands surrounding it.
Stink badgers[1] | |
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Sunda stink badger (M. javanensis) and Palawan stink badger (M. marchei) | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Carnivora |
Family: | Mephitidae |
Genus: | Mydaus Cuvier, 1821[2] |
Type species | |
Mydaus meliceps[3] | |
Species | |
Mydaus ranges |
Stink badgers are named for their resemblance to other badgers and for the foul-smelling secretions that they expel from anal glands in self-defense (which is stronger in the Sunda species).[4]
Stink badgers were traditionally thought to be related to Eurasian badgers in the subfamily Melinae of the weasel family of carnivorans (the Mustelidae), but recent DNA analysis indicates they share a more recent common ancestor with skunks, so experts have now placed them in the skunk family[4][5] (the Mephitidae, which is the sister group of a clade composed of Mustelidae and Procyonidae, with the red panda also assigned to one of the sister clades[6]). The two existing species are different enough from each other for the Palawan stink badger to be sometimes classified in its own genus, Suillotaxus.[4]