Coyote and badger seen travelling together in rare camera footage

Video marks first time two species captured using manmade structure to travel together

A rare video has captured the moment a coyote playfully waits for its badger companion to catch up before the pair travel through a tunnel together.

Covert night camera footage shows the coyote patiently waiting at the mouth of a culvert before it pounces on the grass outside, wagging its tail.

It then runs into the culvert, which passes underneath a busy road near the Southern Santa Cruz Mountains, in California, before turning around to check whether its friend is following.

The pair can be seen heading off through the underpass, with the coyote leading the way and the badger waddling behind before the footage ends.

Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), which captured the footage, said coyotes and badgers are known to hunt together — but this is the first time they have been caught travelling through a manmade structure with one another.

While the coyote is quicker at chasing down prey, the badger is better at digging it up if it decides to hide underground.

Sharing the video on Twitter, POST wrote: “Badgers and coyotes have long been known to team up to hunt, but we believe this is the first video documenting the pair travelling together through a human-made structure.

A covert camera captured the moment a coyote waited for a badger to catch up before the pair travelled through a tunnel underneath a busy road in California. (Peninsula Open Space Trust ) (Peninsula Open Space Trust)

“Studies have shown that a badger and coyote hunting together can be beneficial for both species, as they pursue favourite prey such as ground squirrels. Maybe that’s where they’re headed?”

The trust has more than 50 remote sensor cameras set up around the area helping it to capture and study scenes such as this one.

The findings help the organisation to improve and expand safe wildlife habitats and crossings, it said.