Guide
Badger
The badger is a sturdy, nocturnal omnivore of woodland and farmland edges, best known among trackers for a very tidy habit: it buries its droppings in dug latrine pits.
Identifying the droppings
- Badgers dig shallow latrine pits — small pots in the ground — and use them again and again, often near the sett or along territory boundaries.
- The droppings themselves vary hugely with diet: firm and dark after eating small mammals, sloppy and dark after a feast of earthworms or fruit.
- They carry a sweet, musky odour distinct from a fox's sharper smell.
- Woodland, hedgerows, and the margins of farmland are the typical settings.
In the field
The latrine behaviour is the single most useful sign. Finding a cluster of small dug pits with droppings inside, especially on the edge of a territory, points to badgers far more reliably than the appearance of the scat alone.
Because badgers eat everything from worms to windfall apples, the texture is inconsistent — a wet, shapeless dropping is just as likely as a firm one. Read the latrine pit and location rather than trying to identify a single dropping in isolation.
Game facts
- Class
- Mammal
- Diet
- Omnivore
- Habitat
- Forest, Farmland, Grassland
- Region
- Europe, Asia
- Typical adult weight
- 12 kg
- Typical body length
- 75 cm
- Activity
- Active by night
- Social pattern
- Often in groups
- Conservation
- Least concern
- Puzzle photos
- 5
In the game
Badger sits between several clue groups in the game: mammal, omnivore, forest, farmland, and a medium-small body size.
Similar guesses
Photo sources
Image credits are shown after each puzzle to avoid spoiling the answer.
- Badger Latrine - geograph.org.uk - 2103662.jpgNigel Mykura · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Badger latrine beside footpath through field west of Asfordby - geograph.org.uk - 7309370.jpgRoger Templeman · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Badger latrine alongside the Priest's Way, Langton Matravers, Isle of Purbeck - geograph.org.uk - 6061530.jpgPhil Champion · CC BY-SA 2.0