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Skull. The root word for "stoat" is likely either the Dutch word stout ("bold") [4] or the Gothic word πππ°πΏππ°π½ (stautan, "to push"). [5] According to John Guillim, in his Display of Heraldrie, the word "ermine" is likely derived from Armenia, the nation where it was thought the species originated, [4] though other authors have linked it to the Norman French from the ...
Stoats were eradicated from Chalky Island and other Fiordland islands in the early 2000s, and scientists assumed that they would be unable to cross a 300 m water barrier, but stoats turned out to be able to reinvade: DNA testing confirmed that stoats regularly swim towards islands in summer, especially in beech mast years, and prefer long ...
It was long considered conspecific with the stoat (M. erminea), but a 2021 study found it to be a distinct species, forming distinct genetic clades from erminea. [3] [4] [5] The finding has been accepted by the American Society of Mammalogists. [6]
Skulls of a long-tailed weasel (top), a stoat (bottom left) and least weasel (bottom right), as illustrated in Merriam's Synopsis of the Weasels of North America. The long-tailed weasel is the product of a process begun 5–7 million years ago, when northern forests were replaced by open grassland, thus prompting an explosive evolution of small, burrowing rodents.
The genus Mustela includes the least weasels, polecats, stoats, ferrets, and European mink. Members of this genus are small, active predators, with long and slender bodies and short legs. The family Mustelidae, or mustelids (which also includes badgers, otters, and wolverines), is often referred to as the "weasel family".
Weasels are mammals belonging to the family Mustelidae and the genus Mustela, which includes stoats, least weasels, ferrets, and minks, among others. Different species of weasel have lived alongside humans on every continent except Antarctica and Australia, and have been assigned a wide range of folkloric and mythical meanings.
A stoat surplus killing chipmunks (Ernest Thompson Seton, 1909) Multiple sheep killed by a cougar. Surplus killing, also known as excessive killing, henhouse syndrome, [1] [2] or overkill, [3] is a common behavior exhibited by predators, in which they kill more prey than they can immediately eat and then they either cache or abandon the remainder.
Ermine may refer to three species of mustelid in the genus Mustela, or their fur: . Stoat or Eurasian ermine, Mustela erminea, found throughout Eurasia and northern North America