Honeyguides and honey badgers are two fascinating African wildlife species that have developed extraordinary symbiotic relationships with each other. In this article, we will explore the following questions:
What are honeyguides?
Honeyguides are a family of birds found throughout sub-Saharan Africa. There are 17 different species of honeyguides, all belonging to the Indicatoridae family. Some of the more common honeyguide species include the greater honeyguide, scaly-throated honeyguide, and black-throated honeyguide.
Honeyguides are best known for their unique habit of guiding humans to bee colonies. The honeyguide bird will attract the attention of a human forager through a series of chirps, whistles, and even tail-wagging. Once the human’s interest is piqued, the honeyguide will fly from tree to tree, waiting for the person to follow. In this way, the honeyguide will lead the human directly to a bee colony containing honey.
But why do honeyguides go through all this effort to show humans the location of bees’ nests? It turns out honeyguides have an agenda – they cannot access the honey themselves with their slender, curved beaks. So they recruit the help of humans, who will crack open the nest with tools to get to the sweet reward inside. The honeyguide benefits by feasting on the leftover wax and bee larvae.
What are honey badgers?
Honey badgers, also known as ratels, are tough members of the weasel family found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and western Asia. Despite their small size (9-14 lbs), honey badgers have a fearsome reputation thanks to their grumpy temperament and seeming imperviousness to bee stings.
Honey badgers get their name from their favorite food – honey. They have a massive sweet tooth and will go to great lengths to raid bee hives and feed on the honey and larvae inside. Honey badgers have very thick skin and coarse hair, allowing them to shrug off hundreds of bee stings that would incapacitate other animals.
Besides honey, honey badgers also feed on small mammals, reptiles, insects, roots, and fruits. They are expert diggers and can dig quickly through hard earth. Honey badgers are also clever tool users, able to problem-solve and use objects to their advantage.
Do honeyguides actually guide honey badgers?
Now this brings us to the main question – do honeyguides guide honey badgers in the same way they guide human foragers to bee colonies full of honey? There is some evidence to suggest they do.
According to anecdotal reports, honeyguides have been observed issuing their come-hither calls near honey badgers. The badgers sometimes appear to follow the honeyguides, who lead them to bee colonies. However, scientific proof of this phenomenon remains elusive.
In 2018, a team of researchers published a paper attempting to definitively answer this question. They closely observed interactions between 10 wild honey badgers and honeyguides in South Africa’s Kalahari region over a period of months. The results were inconclusive – while honeyguides were seen near foraging honey badgers, and occasionally issued calls, the birds did not actively guide the badgers to bee colonies.
More research is needed to determine if honeyguides form symbiotic relationships with honey badgers akin to those they form with human honey hunters. Currently, some experts remain skeptical that honeyguides would work with honey badgers in this way. But others point out that honeyguides are highly intelligent and adaptable birds who may have learned that teaming up with badgers can grant them access to beehives.
Why would honeyguides potentially guide honey badgers?
If honeyguides do indeed lead honey badgers to bee colonies, there are several potential reasons why:
- Honey badgers, like humans, can access bee colonies that honeyguides cannot. Their thick skin and immunity to venom allow them to feast on honey and larvae.
- Honeyguides may be able to feed on wax and larvae leftovers after honey badgers raid a hive.
- Honeyguides observe honey badgers raiding wild hives and have learned to follow badgers to new food sources.
- Guiding honey badgers may be an adaptation developed in areas without human foragers.
In essence, honeyguides may have discovered that teaming up with a Honey badger provides the same foraging benefits as working with a human, allowing the bird to gain access to the coveted contents of wild beehives.
How would honeyguides communicate with honey badgers?
Honeyguides are famous for the intricate ways they communicate with human foragers through vocalizations, motions, and leading flights. But honey badgers do not understand human language or follow human gestures. So how would honeyguides convey their intentions to a honey badger?
Honeyguides would likely rely primarily on vocalizations to indicate the presence of bees’ nests to badgers. These vocalizations may include distinctive, recognizable calls that badgers associate with discovering hives. The birds may also use territorial calls to signify food and lead badgers toward it.
Visual signals like flashing white tail feathers, used by honeyguides to attract human attention, are unlikely to be very effective for badgers. But honeyguides may position themselves in strategic locations in the badger’s line of sight and use sit-and-wait tactics to indicate a target. The honeyguide may also dive aggressively at the badger from the direction of a bee colony as a form of food-alerting.
Ultimately, honey badgers rely more on their keen sense of smell to locate bee colonies. But honeyguides can alert badgers to the general vicinity to investigate through persistent vocalization communication.
How do honey badgers raid bee colonies?
Honey badgers are well equipped to breech bee colonies thanks to several key adaptations:
- Thick skin and coarse hair – Equals protection from hundreds of stings
- Long claws – For digging quickly through soil and prying nests open
- Tough, muscular build – Enables badgers to destroy nest walls and wax caps
- Elastic jaws and throat – Allow badgers to swallow bees and larvae whole
When a honey badger locates a bee colony, usually through scent tracking, it will dig ferociously at the nest entrance. The badger’s thick skin shrugs off bee attack while its claws tear open access holes. Once inside, the badger gorges on honey, bees, and larvae alike, destroying much of the hive structure in the process.
Being bitten by bees releases pheromones that incite attack, but honey badgers seem unaffected by this. Their tough hides enable them to feast on a hive’s contents despite the mass of angry bees swarming upon them.
Do honey badgers eat honeyguides?
Honey badgers are fierce predators that feed on a wide variety of small prey. Their diet includes insects, scorpions, lizards, rodents, birds, eggs, and more. So it’s fair to wonder – do honey badgers eat honeyguides?
The answer seems to be no. There are no documented cases of honey badgers preying upon honeyguides. In fact, honeyguides appear to be one of the only small bird species in sub-Saharan Africa not threatened by honey badgers.
There’s likely two main reasons why honeyguides don’t appear on the honey badger menu:
- Honeyguides taste terrible – They secrete a foul-tasting substance from their preen gland that deters predators.
- Symbiotic relationship – Honeyguides provide a valuable service to honey badgers by leading them to hives.
Of course, a very hungry honey badger may attempt to eat a honeyguide in desperation. But for the most part, badgers seem to recognize that keeping honeyguides around brings more pros than cons.
Conclusion
The notion that honeyguides collaborate with honey badgers as well as humans remains scientifically unproven. Yet there is some intriguing evidence and logic supporting the idea these two African species may form cooperative foraging relationships. More research into honeyguide-honey badger interactions is needed to determine if strategic recruitment and communication is actually taking place between the two.
Whether the partnership exists or not, both honeyguides and honey badgers demonstrate remarkable intelligence and adaptation. Honeyguides have evolved specialized skills to gain access to energy-rich yet hard-to-reach bee colonies. Honey badgers have developed physical tools like stench, elasticity, and fur insulation to feed on the same target. Careful observation may reveal more intricacies between this unique bird and fascinating mammal who dine together at Nature’s honeypot.