The Honey Badger (Mellivora capensis), also known as the Ratel, is a member of the Mustelidae family. They are distributed throughout most of Africa and western and south Asian areas of Baluchistan (eastern Iran), southern Iraq, Pakistan and Rajasthan (western India). It is the only species classified in the genus Mellivora and the subfamily Mellivorinae. They have been named the most fearless animal in the Guinness Book of World Records for a number of years.

This little guy wanders around aimlessly looking for something to eat. He lives off of the scraps of other animals. He does this until he finds his Honey Guide.

Honeyguides are named for a remarkable habit seen in one or two species: they guide humans, and possibly other large mammals (such as the Honey Badger) to bee colonies. Once the mammal opens the hive and takes the honey, the bird feeds on the remaining wax and larvae.

This little bird waits until she sees a Honey Badger near by. Then she swarms on him, flying around his face, bothering him greatly. He tries to swat her away but she doesn’t give up. Eventually a natural instinct kicks in and the Honey Badger decides to follow the Honeyguide. She leads him to a bee hive.

The Honey Badgers hide is impermeable to Bee stings. His only vulnerable area is the tip of his nose. So the Honey Badger can easily rip open a Bee Hive and have a sticky lunch. But he never forgets to pay his Honeyguide. He leaves her a well rounded meal in return for her discovery.

You can watch the whole thing go down here in my new favorite movie, Animals are beautiful People.

Here it is, Mike:

The Casio MT-46 circuit bent for Quell, features:
– Installed optical “theremin” with accompanying blinky light
– mute/mod switches for Hi-Hat sounds
– 4-way glitch joystick with alien filters and harmonies
– 3 body contacts for bitcrushed BROWN NOTES, special for the Reverend Moquell

There were times I thought this whole thing was wrecked. Up until the last minute, half of the keys weren’t even working. At one point I was getting no audio at all — fearing that I had crossed something hot and blown out a chip. I spent more time fixing things I’d snapped, unsoldered and burnt than I did adding new features! I couldn’t resist adding the blinky opto-theremin thing either. The idea is to reflect the blinking *LAZERBEAM* back onto the photocell to make it freak out more.

SO MIKE — the deal is, you have to post some freakout acid jams for us now. Maybe you can finally record the soundtrack to that new Unicorn-Cardiologist-Outer-Space-Western cartoon drama you’ve been working so hard on!

I was recently given the gift of a photo tour at the San Diego Wild Life Reserve where I got to feed the Giraffes. My favorite animal, a dream come true.