Food habits of the Eurasian badger in a rural Mediterranean area

We studied food habits of the badgerMeles meles in a rural Mediterranean area. During one year, 329 faeces were collected twice a month and later analysed. Vegetal matter represented the bulk of the diet, which appears unimodal in comparison to other European studies. Many domestic and wild fruit species and crops were important in total diet by themselves. Invertebrates were frequently eaten, but in smaller volumes than insects in other studies in the Mediterranean area and earthworms in Central/Northern Europe. Vertebrates exceeded invertebrates in terms of volume, although they were present in just a half of the samples. The description of the badger as a generalist or a specialist feeder might have been affected by analyses focused either on volume or occurrences. The results of our study seem to support the hypothesis of the badger as opportunistic food generalist.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]