Winter Weasel

I'm in love! Put him in a box and send him to me. He can live in the Looking Glass. I'll import snow...

What does his coat look like in summer, if he's in camo now?

 

Clearly a noble beast!

I'd like to know what differentiates weasels, stoats, minks, ermines, and ferrets; if anybody knows? Maybe it is just geographic.

I saw a kickass documentary on wolverines yesterday. One was spotted in the Tahoe area for the first time in a bajillion years. Awesome animals.

 

He's green in summer, Alexis.

He's beautiful.

 

he is beautiful, is he dangerous to humans?

 

Weasel, stoat, ermine, mink, ferret and polecat are all common names (in English) for species in the genus Mustela. Like any common names they don't necessarily have any systematic meaning, and many species have 2 or more of these names applied to them. For instance: stoat (summer coat) = ermine (winter coat) = short-tailed weasel (all year). Or the common ferret is a domesticated form of a polecat, but other ferrets (like black footed) are quite different. The differences between species are more than just geographic, but the common names may be almost randomly applied, so some confusion isn't unexpected.

 

Thanks, PaphMadMan. What floors me is... in the past Floozo's addressed myself and others (you know who you are) as 'weasel'. I had no idea he was likening me to a noble beast.

Nice photo, Pook. We just have the garden variety brown weasels here.

 

My greatest wish, other than for Dale the weasel to send me his Angs, would be for a fisher to take up residence in my yard. Whereupon he would certainly eat all the squirrels!

 

so pretty, i love the black tail tip

Is it a Long-tailed Weasel (Mustela frenata)

 

Beautiful!

 

We have them down here, but they don't change colors. They eat lots of ground squirrels (at least where i work) . It is very cool to see them zooming around in search of a meal.