LIKE so many of their human sisters, lady badgers prefer to conduct their intimacies with the lights out.

New research published today suggests that Britain’s largest terrestrial carnivore breeds successfully only when the moon is in its darkest monthly phase. Down on the sett, it is the equivalent of closing the curtains and switching off the bedside lamp.

Writing in the new edition of BBC Wildlife magazine, Dr David Dixon, a marine biologist, reports his findings from a three-year Peeping Tom survey of badger colonies near Plymouth. The girls prefer it in the dark, but the boys are always trying it on.

During a new moon, when the night is at its darkest, Dr Dixon observed that female badgers were “tolerant or indifferent” to the advances of males, while during the bright glow of a full moon they became postively hostile. Most matings occurred during the last and first phases of the moon, when it is at its least illuminating.

Badger mating is an act which, on average, lasts a good 90 minutes. It might even, for the participants, be an excellent 90 minutes.

But, in another parallel with human behaviour, Dr Dixon noted: “The exceptions were some short matings, lasting a minute or less, whose function may have had more to do with dominance relationships than with reproduction.”

One of the few things that the duller male human understands about the female monthly cycle is that it is the origin of the word “lunacy”.

In his account of his researches, in which he lured badgers towards his camera with nuts, despite their staple diet being earthworms enlivened by the occasional small rabbit or autumnal windfall apple, Dr Dixon writes: “The dominant male and female would scent-mark more often at times of a new moon. I also noticed that the female’s attitude to male members of the group varied depending on the phase of the moon.”

Human pubbers, nightclubbers and lounge lizards will recognise the symptoms at once.

Dr Dixon is a marine biologist whose aquatic species, like romantic humans and the owl and the pussycat, are traditionally inspired to passion by the light of the moon. “This discovery is a first for any species of nocturnal mammal, and opens up an exciting new area for future research,” he said.

His only explanation for badgers’ behaviour is that in times past such languid lovemakers would have been prey to wolves, lynx or bears had they copulated by the light of the moon.

Badger-breeding is still not fully understood. They mate during summer and autumn when the moon is on the wane, but tend to have their cubs in February. Scientists believe they have delayed implantation, which means that they can delay the start of gestation for months after they have been impregnated.

Many species stay at home during the full moon to avoid being eaten. Badgers seem not to have woken up to the fact that, in Britain at least, they now have no natural predators, apart from legions of the prying who like to watch them at their privacies, and farmers convinced that they spread bovine tuberculosis.

Steve Jackson, the vice-chairman of the National Federation of Badger Groups, which represents more than 80 badger-watching societies, welcomed Dr Dixon’s research as new and fascinating. “This just goes to show that the badger, which has been so intensively studied, is still full of surprises,” he said. “Badgers are very flexible in their diet and in their social systems, which explains why they are such a successful species in a variety of habitats across large areas of the world.”

So it’s not just the fumbling in the dark, then.

SETT PIECE

Despite the protests of farmers who claim badgers infect their herds with bovine TB, the Government remains unconvinced

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