# Now I am stumped!



## Stan Schultz (Jan 22, 2010)

A friend in Hawaii sent me this photo with the name "toomanyaardvarks.jpg," but those aren't aardvarks. (Click the thumbnail for a larger image.)



This is an aardvark: 

http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?enlarge=0091+3183+0918+0073

I thought I had a pretty good handle on "Life on Earth," but I'm stumped. I don't remember ever seeing anything like these critters before. They look a little like wolverines or badgers, but those don't hunt in packs and if any one of them showed up in the back yard that cat in the lower right corner would be dead meat ASAP! 

Can any of you ID these critters?


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## Edd Eskimo (Jan 22, 2010)

They are badgers!!!!!!!!!!!! wow wtf are they all doing out?!!


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## Edd Eskimo (Jan 22, 2010)

Ooo...There's a Full moon out! That is why they're so many out!


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## Widowman10 (Jan 22, 2010)

look like badgers to me... european badgers.


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## Widowman10 (Jan 22, 2010)

Eurasian/European badgers are one of the few species of mestelids to exhibit any form of social interaction at all. they live in territorial groups called clans (or social groups), which are made up of about 15 members, headed by a dominant male and female.


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## Smitty78 (Jan 22, 2010)

Wow. That isn't something I would want to walk out my backdoor into. I am surprised they have not killed the cat in the picture.


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## sharpfang (Jan 22, 2010)

*Badgers!*

They are Not known to be the friendliest animals..........LOL

I didn't realize that they roam peoples back yards like raccoons, scavaging.


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## Ariel (Jan 22, 2010)

Smitty78 said:


> Wow. That isn't something I would want to walk out my backdoor into. I am surprised they have not killed the cat in the picture.


the cat looks fake. the a statue..


Crazy pic though!


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## Tecnition4life (Jan 22, 2010)

Those guys are definatley not friendly, last summer i was herping in the Wasatch mountains in Utah and came across one of these. I was walking on a trail and one of them came running down the trail stopped about 15 feet in front of me. And me being me(i can do verry dumb unsafe things with animals and some other stuff) i tried to get a little closer. Got about 7ish feet away from it and it started growl and like hiss. And started sticking its back upp in the air. So i kinda backed away slowly then ran. haha


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## ballpython2 (Jan 22, 2010)

Ariel said:


> the cat looks fake. the a statue..
> 
> 
> Crazy pic though!


lol

it is a fake cat, I had to look at it twice cause the "cat" looked too calm to be around so many of these


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## Stan Schultz (Jan 22, 2010)

Widowman10 said:


> look like badgers to me... european badgers.


*BINGO!*

As soon as I read your response I Googled *european badger site:edu* and got a number of hits. One of the better ones seems to be http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Meles_meles.html.

So, today is a very good day. I learned something new!

Thanks, one and all.


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## Widowman10 (Jan 23, 2010)

good! personally, i think the euro badgers look cooler than the american badgers, but that's just a preference


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## PrimalTaunt (Jan 23, 2010)

It's all about the badgers... The Wisconsin Badgers.


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## Tim Benzedrine (Jan 24, 2010)

They are obviously looking for mushrooms. But wait, what's that.....

ARRGH! A Snake! A snaaake...  a snaaaaake! A snaaake! OooooOoh, it's a snaaaake...


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## arachnorama (Jan 24, 2010)

Tim Benzedrine said:


> They are obviously looking for mushrooms. But wait, what's that.....
> 
> ARRGH! A Snake! A snaaake...  a snaaaaake! A snaaake! OooooOoh, it's a snaaaake...


LOL

Have you seen the Potter version?


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## Teal (Jan 24, 2010)

*Awww, they are too cute! *


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## 7mary3 (Jan 24, 2010)

Tim Benzedrine said:


> They are obviously looking for mushrooms. But wait, what's that.....
> 
> ARRGH! A Snake! A snaaake...  a snaaaaake! A snaaake! OooooOoh, it's a snaaaake...


I LOLed. 

But then again, when don't I with your posts?


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## xhexdx (Jan 24, 2010)

That badgerbadgerbadger site drives me nuts...

Btw, Stan, was that picture actually taken *in* Hawaii?  I wasn't aware there were badgers there.

--Joe


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## Widowman10 (Jan 24, 2010)

xhexdx said:


> Btw, Stan, was that picture actually taken *in* Hawaii?  I wasn't aware there were badgers there.


i'm not so sure you would find european badgers wandering around hawaii...

i say no


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## xhexdx (Jan 24, 2010)

There's all kinds of stuff in Hawaii that shouldn't be there, so you never know.


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## Widowman10 (Jan 25, 2010)

xhexdx said:


> There's all kinds of stuff in Hawaii that shouldn't be there, so you never know.


like chickens


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## xhexdx (Jan 25, 2010)

Lol!

Rats, mongoose, there's a species of passion fruit that strangles trees, etc.


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## Stan Schultz (Jan 25, 2010)

xhexdx said:


> That badgerbadgerbadger site drives me nuts...
> 
> Btw, Stan, was that picture actually taken *in* Hawaii?  I wasn't aware there were badgers there.
> 
> --Joe


No, I'm sure there are no feral badgers in Hawaii. At least no mention was made of them in the few webpages I read, and I've not heard of any through other sources. I think my friend merely found the photo on the Internet and sent it to me because he thought it was cool, and he coincidentally also lives in Hawaii. We trade distinctive photos a lot. It keeps us on our toes.

Talk about an ecological disaster! A large, very aggressive, generalized predator that travels in packs of a dozen or more, and that builds huge, underground warrens of tunnels and dens, loose in Hawaii! That's a nightmare I don't ever want to see. 

For more information on invasive species in Hawaii you can Google *invasive-species hawaii site:edu -pdf*.

This webpage was particularly interesting: http://www.earlham.edu/~biol/hawaii/mammals.htm


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## xhexdx (Jan 25, 2010)

Great link, Stan.  Thanks! 

I wasn't aware they had wallabys in Oahu, but I've seen most of the others listed.


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## Tim Benzedrine (Jan 25, 2010)

arachnorama said:


> LOL
> 
> Have you seen the Potter version?


Yep! it's pretty cute. My favourite part is "Arrgh. A Snape!  A Snaape......."



			
				xhexdx said:
			
		

> That badgerbadgerbadger site drives me nuts...


Yeah? Then you ought to LOVE this one!


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## ZergFront (Jan 26, 2010)

Tim Benzedrine said:


> They are obviously looking for mushrooms. But wait, what's that.....
> 
> ARRGH! A Snake! A snaaake...  a snaaaaake! A snaaake! OooooOoh, it's a snaaaake...


 LMFAO!! Yay, I'm not the only one here who saw that (and was going to mention that video..)


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## Mina (Jan 26, 2010)

Sorry I couldn't help you identify them, Stan.  I have seen the animals before but couldn't remember what they were.
Glad someone was able to help you out.


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## Shell (Jan 26, 2010)

Pikaia said:


> No, I'm sure there are no feral badgers in Hawaii. At least no mention was made of them in the few webpages I read, and I've not heard of any through other sources.



That would be correct. I was talking to my grandparents in Hawaii last night, and I had to ask them about it. They just laughed and said "nope, no badgers but lots of other stuff that shouldn't be here" lol 

I also didn't know they had wallaby's. All the time I have spent in Hawaii, and I had no clue.


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## ZooRex (Jan 27, 2010)

Pikaia said:


> A friend in Hawaii sent me this photo with the name "toomanyaardvarks.jpg," but those aren't aardvarks. (Click the thumbnail for a larger image.)


Yes they look like badgers, but did anyone notice that they all look alike and none of them have shadows of any kind? This pic reminds me alot of the "jumping wolf" that was recently found to be a fake.


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## Zoltan (Jan 27, 2010)

KingRex said:


> Yes they look like badgers, but did anyone notice that they all look alike and none of them have shadows of any kind?


I thought there was something odd about this photo, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.


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## Stan Schultz (Jan 27, 2010)

KingRex said:


> Yes they look like badgers, but did anyone notice that they all look alike ...


Only in the sense that they're all European badgers. Otherwise, each is in a different orientation with respect to the camera, and they're all caught in different poses. Also, the individuals towards the rear are darker and smaller than those closer to the camera and flash. I vote for them being a flock/herd/bunch of different animals.

Furthermore, I've expanded the photo to the limits of my graphics program's ability and examined the images of the animals themselves. While I grant you that modern graphics programs are capable of doing some amazing things, here I could find no trace or hint whatsoever that the animals' images had been pasted onto a background photo.



KingRex said:


> ... and none of them have shadows of any kind? ...


Here I'll agree with you. But if you look closely you'll see that the potted plants in the center of the photo also lack shadows. In fact, the only place we see anything that looks like shadows are behind a few of the plants along the extreme left and right edges of the photo. And, if you look closely you can almost convince yourself that there's only a trace of a hint of a shadow against the right edge of the bird feeder's pole.

I have seen this effect before. It's caused by the use of a ring flash surrounding the camera's lens. (Google *camera ring-flash* and get over a million hits!) The photo is taken *THROUGH* the flash, eliminating all but the barest traces of shadows. While this practice is often used, especially in the medical/dental fields, most professional photographers firmly decry it because the resulting photos tend to be very flat and 2-dimensional, which this one certainly is. The major drawback is that ring flashes are normally rather weak and couldn't illuminate the whole backyard as this one did. But, I suppose, that is only of matter of "*More power!*" (With respects to comedian Tim Allen of the TV sitcom _Home Improvement_.)

Because I have no way of tracing the source of this photo I can only spin a fairy tale, but it would be reasonable to assume that the photographer set up a remotely operated camera with a ring flash to catch these bandits in the act of raiding the back yard.

Some of you may suggest that you can get the same result by using a number of separate light sources, but this is most problematic. Each, separate, light source would tend to throw its own shadow and the effect would be multiple shadows instead of no shadows ... unless the photographer was able to mount them all extremely close to the lens so as to reduce the parallax to near zero. Even then it would be a tricky engineering problem.

How about a ring flash and a digital camera, then digitally manipulating the too-dark photo to lighten/brighten it? That might work.

If this photo is a fake, someone did a #$%^# good job.


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## ZooRex (Jan 29, 2010)

Well I admit I was too quick to post before I put flash into account - didn't think of it till after.

You have some very good points above^ and upon learning about the social structure of badger clans in high densities, I now have loosened my skepticism a tad.

With that said, I count 23 all together. That is one huge badger family...


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