Amur Badger

About this species

Range

Amur region of the Russian Far East; central Asia listed by Mammal Diversity Database

Meles amurensis is treated as the Amur badger by the Mammal Diversity Database, which recognises it at species level and includes it in the central Asia country list used by this site. Older literature commonly placed the same name as Meles leucurus amurensis, a form within the Asian badger. Under that older treatment it was described as a small, dark badger with subdued facial stripes. Because the opened modern database page supplies taxonomy and type locality rather than a diagnostic account, those older characters should be treated as historical subspecies descriptions, not a complete modern species diagnosis. (Mammal Diversity Database; Wikipedia, Asian badger account)

The modern database gives the type locality near the Ussuri River in Russia's Amur region. The older subspecies treatment associated the form with the Ussuri and Amur regions, Greater Khingan, and the Korean Peninsula, but did not name central Asia for that form. Consequently, this entry confirms the checklist's accepted name while withholding central Asia-specific habitat, diet, breeding, and viewing localities. A current revision or regional mammal account is required before those biological fields can be written confidently for Meles amurensis rather than borrowed from the more broadly defined Asian badger. (Mammal Diversity Database; Wikipedia, Asian badger account)

Description: Wildlife of Korea guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com); general species information paraphrased from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)