Japanese badger Japanese badger The Japanese badger ("Meles anakuma") is a species of carnivoran of the family Mustelidae, the weasels and their kin. Endemic to Japan, it is found on Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Shodoshima. It shares the genus "Meles" with the Asian and European badgers. In Japan it is called by the name "nihonanaguma" (ニホンアナグマ), lit. "Japan hole-bear". Japanese badgers are smaller (average length in males, in females) and less sexually dimorphic (except in the size of the canine teeth) than their European counterparts. Tail length is between . This species is rather smaller on average than the European badger but
River Meles in Buca and with Kemer Brook flowing through İzmir's neighboring district of Konak before reaching the sea, these two localities are particularly insistent in their claims for associating Meles with the westernmost stream, for understandable reasons. A third candidate takes as basis an anonymous Homeric hymn of unknown date to Artemis which relates that the goddess, "having watered her horses in deep-reeded Meles, drove swiftly through Smyrna to Klaros rich in vines". It has been argued that, if the hymn refers to old Smyrna in its northeastern corner of the Gulf, and if the goddess came to Meles before she