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The black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes), also known as the American polecat [4] or prairie dog hunter, [5] is a species of mustelid native to central North America. The black-footed ferret is roughly the size of a mink and is similar in appearance to the European polecat and the Asian steppe polecat. It is largely nocturnal and solitary ...
The modern classification arose in 1982 when Phillip M. Youngman placed the black-footed ferret into Putorius. [3] The ancestor of modern polecats and ferrets and earliest true polecat is considered to be Mustela stromeri , a smaller species whose size indicated polecats evolved at a late period.
The animal was a black-footed ferret, once abundant in the American West with a range that stretched into Canada and Mexico, but by the 1980s the species was believed to have been wiped out.
In the United States, the term polecat is sometimes applied to the black-footed ferret, a native member of the Mustelinae. In Southern United States dialect, the term polecat is sometimes used as a colloquial nickname for the skunk , which is part of the family Mephitidae .
The story of the black-footed ferrets is a wild one. Their numbers declined precipitously in the twentieth century due to the declining population of prairie dogs (their main source of food) as ...
Antonia, a genetically-modified ferret, was cloned from tissue samples collected from Willa, another endangered black-footed ferret whose furry body was preserved in the Frozen Zoo at the San ...
The European polecat's closest relatives are the steppe polecat and black-footed ferret, with which it is thought to have shared Mustela stromeri as a common ancestor. The European polecat is, however, not as maximally adapted in the direction of carnivory as the steppe polecat, being less specialised in skull structure and dentition.
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