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The various species of weasels include: northern river otter, American mink, long-tailed weasel, ermine or short-tailed weasel, fisher (in New England is known as a fisher cat), and the American marten (Known as pine marten in some areas of New England even though the pine marten is a separate species.).
American ermine, Mustela richardsonii Short-tailed weasel. Distribution: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Subspecies: Mustela richardsonii cicognanii according to Hall (1981) and Whitaker and Hamilton (1998). Long-tailed weasel, Neogale frenata Long-tailed weasel
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.
The American mink was formerly thought to be the only extant member of the genus Neovison following the extinction of the sea mink (N. macrodon), but recent studies, followed by taxonomic authorities, have reclassified it and the sea mink within the genus Neogale, which also contains a few New World weasel species. [3]
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.
In Montagne Noire (France), Ruthenia, and the early medieval culture of the Wends, weasels were not meant to be killed. [9] According to Daniel Defoe also, meeting a weasel is a bad omen. [10] In English-speaking areas, weasel can be an insult, noun or verb, for someone regarded as sneaky, conniving or untrustworthy.
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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 .