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A small American badger has buried a 22-kilogram calf carcass and it was all caught on camera by scientists at the University of Utah.
They are known to cache food to eat later — squirrels and rabbits, typically. No one has ever seen a badger put away such a large hunk of meat.
Scientists at the University of Utah had put out seven calf carcasses in Utah's Grassy Mountains in January 2016 in an attempt to study scavenging behaviour.
A badger captured on a trap camera after it buried a cow carcass. Photo: Biodiversity and Conservation Ecology Lab/University of Utah
At one site, the carcass had completely disappeared. A look at video from the camera trap was enough to see what had happened.
After burying the carcass, the badger built a den next to his large food supply. No other badger visited the site.
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"It's a substantial undertaking," said Ethan Frehner, an associate instructor in biology at the University of Utah.
So why are scientists studying such a thing?
The main point of the research was to learn more about the ecology of scavengers in the Great Basin during the winter.
"Watching badgers undertake this massive excavation around and underneath is impressive," said Frehner. "It's a lot of excavation engineering they put into accomplishing this."
The team didn't originally intend to study badgers, but it was a side benefit of the research, as little is known about badger behaviour, Frehner said.
"They're an enigmatic species," he added. "A substantial amount of their lifetime is spent either underground or a lot of nocturnal behaviour, so it's hard to directly observe that."
The study findings could benefit ranchers, to whom badgers could be providing an ecological service. If badgers can bury a cow, they might also bury other carrion before any diseases incubating in the carcass can infect other cows, the study authors said.