Strange Animal from Indonesia - What is it?

I ran across this story today...

Villagers mystified by strange animal

The story goes that....

SERIAN: An Indonesian plantation worker and a 75-year-old farmer got the shock of their lives when they were attacked by an unknown animal species in two separate occasions earlier this month.

The farmer, Aris Kuna of Kampung Paon Gahat, was attacked by the rare animal while attending to his pepper garden about noon. The foreigner, however, was attacked a week later at a plantation near Kpg Baing while gathering oil palm fresh fruit bunches around 9am.

The animal that attacked the duo was described as having a ‘bear and wild boar’ resemblance. Fellow workers and villagers who saw the carcass, brought by the Indonesian, could not identify the animal species.

The did kill it. Its about 2ft long according to the article. Best pic of it is this pic of the mystery critter

So ATS, what is it?

From the snout and claws it looks like maybe the badger family? Some type of mole?

It is a Sunda stink badger (Mydaus javanensis ) is a mammal of Southest Asia. There is strong DNA evidence that the genus Mydaus is not a member of the badger family at all, but are in fact Old World relatives of the skunks. There are two known subspecies.

Wikipedia

Cool looking lil guy.
Awesome claws. I'll be interested to hear what people think about this one.

If it really is a new species, how could it have been hiding all this time? And then suddenly start attacking people ?
Evolution?
Mysterious beast.

Originally posted by Frogs
I ran across this story today...

Villagers mystified by strange animal

The story goes that....

SERIAN: An Indonesian plantation worker and a 75-year-old farmer got the shock of their lives when they were attacked by an unknown animal species in two separate occasions earlier this month.

The farmer, Aris Kuna of Kampung Paon Gahat, was attacked by the rare animal while attending to his pepper garden about noon. The foreigner, however, was attacked a week later at a plantation near Kpg Baing while gathering oil palm fresh fruit bunches around 9am.

The animal that attacked the duo was described as having a ‘bear and wild boar’ resemblance. Fellow workers and villagers who saw the carcass, brought by the Indonesian, could not identify the animal species.

The did kill it. Its about 2ft long according to the article. Best pic of it is this pic of the mystery critter

So ATS, what is it?

From the snout and claws it looks like maybe the badger family? Some type of mole?

Interesting. But i don't find that animal that strange to be considered a new discover or cryptid like. There's a dinosaur cryptid at Indonesia if i'm correct...

Originally posted by WP4YT
It is a Sunda stink badger (Mydaus javanensis ) is a mammal of Southest Asia. There is strong DNA evidence that the genus Mydaus is not a member of the badger family at all, but are in fact Old World relatives of the skunks. There are two known subspecies.

Aha good stuff, i did think it seemed a bit too out there and too good to be true.
New species in 2012 was too exciting to be true.
2012 the year that disappointed conspiracy theorists.

It's actually really cute.....

But even if it wasn't, did they really have to kill it?

It is either a Padger or a Big.

I saw a wild piggy in Hawaii, named him Fluffy.

I know what it is.....It's cute.

Looks like a pig to me...

working on a pig farm growing up they are kind of
obvious as to what they are.

Adorable. Thank you for sharing. It's sad it had to be killed.

reply to post by severdsoul


A pig?
Surely if you worked on a pig far, you would know that pigs have hooves, not claws.

Looks more like a possum or quill less porcupine, but I don't know for sure.

[EDIT]
Just wanted to add that I think its neither.
Porcupines have a much rounder blunted nose, and opossums have quite different looking feet.

reply to post by Lagrimas

dont be too dissapointed, there is approximatley 15,000 new species discovered/classified yearly, the majority are plants and insects but definatly new mammals, reptiles, amphibs, birds..etc

Originally posted by WP4YT

It is a Sunda stink badger (Mydaus javanensis ) is a mammal of Southest Asia. There is strong DNA evidence that the genus Mydaus is not a member of the badger family at all, but are in fact Old World relatives of the skunks. There are two known subspecies.

Quick work on the ID for this...definitely that's what it is. Here are a couple of good photos of the Palawan stink badger (this site won't let you copy the photos, so can't embed them here)

I agree that it looks like the pics of the stink badger. Before I saw those photos my first impression was that it looked like a cross between a badger and a possum. Cute!

I think it's funny that they supposedly couldn't ID this....send it to ATS and it's ID'ed in one post.

Am I the only one who finds it odd that this guy supposedly cut off the leg (which we can see a picture of) and yet it appears to have all its limbs in the shot of the whole animal?

Originally posted by paradisepurple
It's actually really cute.....

But even if it wasn't, did they really have to kill it?

I'm not 100% certain, but I suspect it may have had something to do with the man being attacked by the animal.

How do you normally react when wild animals you can't see attack you?

Interesting! Well, the snout looks pig-like, but the feet most definitely do not. Those are more like a badger, coon, or mole. Maybe they really did locate something new. it does happen. Nice find, OP!

reply to post by iwilliam


For god's sake it's only 2 foot long I've had cats bigger than that....

Granted, those claws are damn scary... But they could have set up a trap, especially after being attacked before.. Too many kill-happy people in the world unfortunately

reply to post by iwilliam

Am I the only one who finds it odd that this guy supposedly cut off the leg (which we can see a picture of) and yet it appears to have all its limbs in the shot of the whole animal?

Nope, you're not alone. It's the first thing I noticed. Apparently he slashed the limb off when he killed it but the photo shows the dead animal with all limbs intact. I think that the villager just wanted some publicity and some moolah so made up a wild story to go with the dead stink badger.

Also, an animal that size isn't likely to attack a human unless it's cornered. It's first defence would be a shot of stink surely?

reply to post by paradisepurple


Badgers are very aggressive and dangerous. Those claws and their teeth are quite capable of inflicting fatal harm on a person.

It's nice and noble that you mourn for the animal, but please, don't act like it's some cuddly little kitten who only wants to play.

reply to post by Frogs

It Is a cute animal,pity they had to kill it,but if was the one attacking people-just wondering,did it attack out of aggression or was it maybe startled/ cornered? I did'nt know this critter existed,lovely to see a new thing.Made me think a bit of a Tasmanian Devil at a glance,cept for the schnozzle.