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]
Sunda stink badger (M. javanensis) and Palawan stink badger (M. marchei)
Scientific classification Edit this 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
Skull and dentition, as illustrated in Gervais' Histoire naturelle des mammifères
Mydaus javanensis

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]

References

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  1. ^ Wozencraft, W. C. (2005). "Order Carnivora". In Wilson, D. E.; Reeder, D. M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 622–623. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
  2. ^ Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, Étienne; Cuvier, Frédéric (1821). "Le télagon". Histoire naturelle des mammifères. Vol. 3 (27). Paris. pp. 1–2.
  3. ^ Wilson, D. E.; Reeder, D. M., eds. (2005). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
  4. ^ a b c Stink badgers at the Badger Pages Archived 2007-08-06 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Koepfli KP, Deere KA, Slater GJ, et al. (2008). "Multigene phylogeny of the Mustelidae: resolving relationships, tempo and biogeographic history of a mammalian adaptive radiation". BMC Biol. 6 (1): 4–5. doi:10.1186/1741-7007-6-10. PMC 2276185. PMID 18275614.
  6. ^ Law, C. J.; Slater, G. J.; Mehta, R. S. (2018-01-01). "Lineage Diversity and Size Disparity in Musteloidea: Testing Patterns of Adaptive Radiation Using Molecular and Fossil-Based Methods". Systematic Biology. 67 (1): 127–144. doi:10.1093/sysbio/syx047. PMID 28472434.