Taxidea

Taxidea is a genus of mustelid carnivore containing a single living species, the American badger (Taxidea taxus), found across the western, central, and northeastern United States, northern Mexico, and south-central Canada into southwestern British Columbia. It favors open grasslands and prairie with sandy loam soils where it can dig for burrowing prey such as mice, squirrels, and groundhogs. The American badger has a stocky, low-slung body with short powerful legs, huge foreclaws up to five centimeters long, and a grizzled brown, black, and white coat marked by a distinctive black and white facial pattern with a white stripe running from the nose to the back of the head. Adults measure roughly 60 to 75 centimeters in length, with males weighing up to 8.6 kilograms and females averaging 6.3 to 7.2 kilograms. Though it resembles the European badger, it is not closely related to it.