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Skull. The root word for "stoat" is likely either the Dutch word stout ("bold") [4] or the Gothic word 𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌿𐍄𐌰𐌽 (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 ...
Some of the larger wild predators of ermines are minks, martens, fishers, bobcats, coyotes, and large owls and hawks. Occasionally a domesticated cat or dog may kill an ermine. Their small agile bodies help them evade these predators, while also allow them to compete with their predators for food in more barren months. [8]
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
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 habitat for the Haida ermine has been intensively reduced over the past few centuries due to old-growth timber harvest in the Tongass National Forest, an important protected area for the species, as well as industrial-scale mining on the islands, which disproportionately affects insular endemics such as M. haidarum.
In the Ainu language, ermines are called upas-čironnup or sáčiri, but since least weasels are also called sáčiri, Mashio Chiri surmised that the honorary title poy-sáčiri-kamuy (where poy means "small") refers to least weasels. [17]
Ermines is the reverse of ermine – a field sable semé of ermine-spots argent; it is sometimes called counter-ermine (cf. French contre-hermine and German Gegenhermelin). [2] Erminois is ermine with a field or (gold) instead of argent (silver) , and pean is the reverse of erminois (i.e., or spots on a field sable ).
Mustelidae, the weasel (mustelid) family, including new- and old-world badgers, ferrets and polecats, fishers, grisons and ratels, martens and sables, minks, river and sea otters, stoats and ermines, tayras and wolverines. Procyonidae, the raccoons and raccoon-like procyonids, including coatimundis, kinkajous, olingos, olinguitos, ringtails and ...