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The American marten is a long, slender-bodied weasel about the size of a mink with relatively large, rounded ears, short limbs, and a bushy tail. American marten have a roughly triangular head and sharp nose. Their long, silky fur ranges in color from pale yellowish buff to tawny brown to almost black.
A wild male mink weighs about 1 kg (2 lb 3 oz) and is about 60 cm (23 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) in length. Farm-bred males can reach 3.2 kg (7 lb 1 oz). The female weighs about 600 g (1 lb 5 oz) and reaches a length of about 50 cm (19 + 1 ⁄ 2 in). The sizes above do not include the tail, which can be from 12.8 to 22.8 cm (5 + 1 ⁄ 16 to 9 in). Mink fur ...
It shares with martens a uniformly enlarged, bushy and somewhat tapering tail, rather than a slender, cylindrical tail with an enlarged bushy tip, as is the case in stoats. [10] The American mink is similar in build to the European mink , but the tail is longer (constituting 38–51% of its body length).
A marten is a weasel-like mammal in the genus Martes within the subfamily Guloninae, in the family Mustelidae. They have bushy tails and large paws with partially retractile claws . The fur varies from yellowish to dark brown, depending on the species; it is valued by animal trappers for the fur trade .
Mustelidae is a family of mammals in the order Carnivora, which includes weasels, badgers, otters, ferrets, martens, minks, and wolverines, and many other extant and extinct genera. A member of this family is called a mustelid; Mustelidae is the largest family in Carnivora, and its extant species are divided into eight subfamilies .
Sthenictis sp. (American Museum of Natural History). Mustelids vary greatly in size and behaviour. The smaller variants of the least weasel can be under 20 cm (8 in) in length, while the giant otter of Amazonian South America can measure up to 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) and sea otters can exceed 45 kg (99 lb) in weight.
Least weasels vary in length from 173 to 217 mm (6 + 3 ⁄ 4 to 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in), [3] females being smaller than the males, and usually have red or brown upper coats and white bellies; some populations of some species moult to a wholly white coat in winter. They have long, slender bodies, which enable them to follow their prey into burrows.
The fur is softer and silkier than that of American martens. [10] Sables greatly resemble pine martens in size and appearance, but have more elongated heads, longer ears and proportionately shorter tails. [11] Their skulls are similar to those of pine martens, but larger and more robust with more arched zygomatic arches. [12]