May's Mystery Picture - What is it?

Email us with your answer!
(There is no prize, it's just for fun and you might get a mention on our website!)

April 2005. Mystery Picture - A Eurasian Badger Meles meles feeding at dusk.

Eurasian Badgers are nocturnal mammals but are very occasionally seen by day.  They are members of the weasel family and live in social groups (called clans) of up to 12 adults in an underground network of passages called a sett.  The setts can occasionally have tunnels hundreds of metres in length and the largest setts have often been established by many generations of badgers over several decades.  The badgers' favourite food in Britain is the earthworm, but when these are harder to find during dry periods they will eat a large variety of other foods including small mammals, insects, fruits and roots.  Normally, only one female in each group will reproduce, with up to three cubs being born during February.  Shortly after this the females come into season again and males travel widely to mate with them.  A few badgers live up to 14 years of age.  However, most do not as there is a high mortality rate, largely due to road deaths. In Britain, badgers are most common in the Southwest of England,  but are rare in East Anglia.

Well done to all the many people who correctly identified April's Mystery Picture, including Anne Rowe, Peter Plaisted, the Johnston family, Ashley, Maury Swoveland and Jo Makosinski.  Thank you to all who had a guess.

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