No. 173 Meles Albogularis. — The White-throated Thibetan Badger
Habitat.—Thibet.
Description.—Smaller and much less tufted ears than the last species; a shorter and much less bushy tail; and the fur shorter and coarser, though of finer texture than in the European badger, with much woolly hair at its base. Both the English badger and M. leucurus are black throated; this one is white throated. The English animal has a broad band of brownish-black, which begins between the muzzle and the eye, and runs through the eye and ear till it fades off on the neck; the space of white between these two bands on the forehead runs back and contracts behind the ears. In the Thibetan animal it contracts just behind the eyes, and is continued as a faint narrow streak only as far as the ears. In the English one the cheeks are broadly white between the eye-band and the black throat; in the Thibetan there is a little white below the eye, and this is bordered by a narrow black stripe, beneath which is the white throat.
There is another Thibetan badger mentioned by Professor Milne-Edwards in his ‘Recherches sur les Mammifères,’ a white-throated one, M. obscurus, but it appears to be the same as M. albogularis.
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