The badger moniker comes from lead miners that initially settled the Wisconsin territory. They often didn't even bother building homes at first and just lived in their wildcat lead mines, like a badger.
I'm in new mexico and saw a badger crossing the road while I was driving to work. It stopped in the middle of the road, turned towards me and waited, like it was deciding whether or not to fuck up the large metal thing coming towards it. Then slowly turned and continued on it's way when it decided I wasn't worth it. No fear whatsoever.
I had a huge buck do that to me once. It was like 3am and the thing just casually walked out into the road in front of my truck and looked at me like "......what?"
But the American badger turns out to just want to drink a beer and talk about sports whereas the European badger, after having sat you down for some tea and buttered crumpets, reveals itself to be a racist eugenicist
No dude, you're thinking of the other kind of British. I'm pretty sure their badgers are related to the homosapiens poulus aggressor, more commonly known as "football hooligans" to the locals.
Brother in law had a huge wolf dog. The kind that can put it's paws on your shoulders and look at you face to face. Massive. He got in a tussel with a badger and got tore up, took two weeks to heal. Then took off and came back with a 40 lbs badger in his mouth. Overall a 40 lbs meth badger = 150 lbs wolf dog.
Australian badgers are half this size, have no teeth at all, but can project venom 50ft from a gland in their nostril. The venom is completely harmless to humans, however it soaks into the skin and causes a pheromone to be emitted from the lungs such that when you are asleep, it attracts 14 different species of deadly venomous spiders that are attracted to your airway from up to a 4km radius.
This is all true but it's missing a key detail. The Australian badger is actually completely unrelated to the European and American badgers (which are mustelids). The Australian badger is a marsupial most closely related to the Tasmanian devil.
I have three dachshunds. Two minis, Mary & Maizie, and a full size, Monty.
Mary we often call a little wolverine, because she can be vicious when she plays, making the most horrific noises you've ever heard out of any creature, much less someone that looks so absolutely disgustingly cute and adorable.
Her sister, Maizie, is the sweetest, kindest, shyest and nicest creature. Unless she sees a rat. Then it's terrifying. She makes no sound as she runs at full speed, and snaps it up and shakes at the speed of sound. I don't think her feet even touch the ground.
Monty is the biggest baby, he just wants to sleep and cuddle, even when he was a puppy. Unless you touch his mama. I am not allowed to hug my own mother, because he stands there and barks and howls and shoves his body between whoever's touching her and her. Lol.
If anything of them could take a badger it would Maizie, but I don't think even she could.
Also, this was originally supposed to be much shorter and more on topic, but then I had a chance to describe my dogs, and, y'know, muh babies!
Our dog is the most kind lovable 70 pound Belgian Shepard you'll ever meet.
On leash if she sees a coyote, bobcat, or mountain lion she turns into a Hollywood snarl machine. That super deep rumble.
One day a cat chased our cat back to the door. I opened it to get him inside but I unwittingly unleashed a silent tan streak. The only reason the other cat survived was it jumped off the porch and went straight up a tree. Our cat came out to gloat and our dog did the tippy taps right there under the tree.
I remember learning that after my dad told me stories about badgers near the Minnesota farm where he grew up killing dogs significantly larger than dachshunds and thinking “how the fuck does that work??”
I've witnessed a European badger stand up to a golden retriever much bigger than it barking and growling aggressively in its face and the badger stood its ground. I don't know if it was too scared to turn away or if it genuinely wanted to fight, but it was brave AF either way. (also I've never seen such a clean badger, but tbf most examples I see are dead on the road :/ )
When I was a child, I was told that hunters used to put things like twigs in their boots, so the European badger would let go, when they heard the "leg break".
You've missed out the Scottish snow badger. Like the regular European badger but about a third larger and completely white to blend into their (now disappearing) snowy highland habitats.
They are the sole reason hard plastic shell ski boots were invented after it was found that snow badgers have no problem biting through the old leather ski boots we used to use.
They hibernate through the summer months and only come out to hunt during the winter so it's very hard to get a photo of them.