AnAge entry for Meles meles
Classification (HAGRID: 02189)
- Taxonomy
-
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia (Taxon entry)
Order: Carnivora
Family: Mustelidae
Genus: Meles
- Species
- Meles meles
- Common name
- European badger, or Old World badger
- Synonyms
- Ursus meles
Lifespan, ageing, and relevant traits
- Maximum longevity
- 18.6 years (captivity)
- Source
- ref. 671
- Sample size
- Medium
- Data quality
- Acceptable
- Observations
The implantation can be delayed and extend the gestation time up to one year. One captive specimen lived 18.6 years [0671]. There are also anecdotal reports, which can be true, of one animal living 19.5 years in captivity [0554].
Life history traits (averages)
- Female sexual maturity
- 365 days
- Male sexual maturity
- 365 days
- Gestation
- 49 days
- Weaning
- 90 days
- Litter size
- 3 (viviparous)
- Litters per year
- 1
- Inter-litter interval
- 365 days
- Weight at birth
- 80 g
- Weight at weaning
- Adult weight
- 13,000 g
- Postnatal growth rate
- 0.0196 days-1 (from Gompertz function)
- Maximum longevity residual
- 89%
Metabolism
- Typical body temperature
- 310ºK or 37.0ºC or 98.6ºF
- Basal metabolic rate
- 16.6470 W
- Body mass
- 11050.0 g
- Metabolic rate per body mass
- 0.001507 W/g
References
- [1143] Nussey et al. (2013), Senescence in natural populations of animals: widespread evidence and its implications for bio-gerontology (PubMed)
- [0671] Richard Weigl (2005), Longevity of Mammals in Captivity; from the Living Collections of the World
- [0036] Savage et al. (2004), The predominance of quarter-power scaling in biology
- [0420] White and Seymour (2003), Mammalian basal metabolic rate is proportional to body mass2/3 (PubMed)
- [0610] Ernest (2003), Life history characteristics of placental non-volant mammals
- [0434] Ronald Nowak (1999), Walker's Mammals of the World
- [0455] Virginia Hayssen et al. (1993), Asdell's Patterns of Mammalian Reproduction: A Compendium of Species-Specific Data
- [0680] Wootton (1987), The effects of body mass, phylogeny, habitat, and trophic level on mammalian age at first reproduction
- [0731] Zullinger et al. (1984), Fitting sigmoid equations to mammalian growth curves
- [0554] Badgers on the Web
External Resources
- Integrated Taxonomic Information System
- ITIS 621922
- Animal Diversity Web
- ADW account
- Encyclopaedia of Life
- Search EOL
- NCBI Taxonomy
- Taxonomy ID 9662
- Entrez
- Search all databases
- Ageing Literature
- Search Google Scholar or Search PubMed
- Images
- Google Image search
- Internet
- Search Google