The Honey Badger Mellivora capensis Schreber, 1776 popularly known as the Ratel, is a monotypic species of the small carnivore family Mustelidae, and is the sole member of its subfamily Mellivorinae. Although currently classified as Least Concern (LC) by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), its population is decreasing and sightings are extremely rare (Do Linh San et al. 2016).

The Honey Badger is widely distributed throughout Africa and western & southern Asia (Begg et al. 2005; Do Linh San et al. 2016), including most of India (Prater 1980; Menon & Daniel 2003). Although their status and distribution have been well documented in parts of Africa and western Asia (Kruuk & Mills 1983; Begg et al. 2003, 2005), there have been few studies on them from across different parts of India (Kumara & Singh 2007; Gupta et al. 2012; Gubbi et al. 2014; Krishnan et al. 2016), mainly from central India and the Western Ghats. There have been no published records of Honey Badgers from the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh. The current note presents the first record of the occurrence of Honey Badger from northern Eastern Ghats (NEG) of Andhra Pradesh State through camera trap images. This record was obtained as part of a camera trapping study that is being undertaken currently by the authors to inventorise the mammal community and its diversity patterns across the NEG of Andhra Pradesh (Aditya & Ganesh 2017). The NEG is spread between 18.491–19.181 0N & 79.541–83.233 0E. The region is generally understood as the section of the Ghats stretching northwards between the Godavari River in Andhra Pradesh and the Mahanadi River in central Odisha. The NEG has an altitudinal range from 20m at the Godavari River to 1,690m at the Jindhagada Peak. The dominant forest type is moist deciduous, with some patches of semi-evergreen and dry deciduous forest (Champion & Seth 1968). There are no published studies on Honey Badgers in the NEG. Most of the forests in the NEG are administered as a cluster of reserved forests (RFs), and there is also one large protected area, the Papikonda National Park (Figure 1).