by Matthew Cobb
Here’s a nice video of my colleague Andrew Gray from the Manchester Museum, describing the similarities and differences between two British mustelids – weasels and stoats – and the perils of eating shrews. Many shrews are infected with parasitic nematodes, which can bore into the skull of the hapless predator. Great close-up of holey skull at the end.
And to show you quite how cuddly stoats can be (as long as you aren’t a shrew), here’s some footage of a stoat kit that Andrew hand-reared before letting him go:
More about Andrew’s work, focusing on frogs, at his blog (NOT website) here.
I recently saw a stoat hopping amazingly fast with that strange mustelid gait, chasing a rabbit when I was up on the Pennines in county Durham. Very beautiful. I wonder if they proliferated & declined with rabbits & myxamatosis?
PS This nematode worm thing is fascinating! Nature really does not care (see also Steve Jobs).
#1: EEEWW!!!
#2: AAAWW!!!
[That last video ate my brain too.]
Would it need to be taught how to hunt by the mother or is it [s]toatally instinctive do you think? I realize some hunters need to learn the trick but some have it from birth. Lions & cheetahs that have been rehabituated to the wild have to be taught… does that depend on natural lifespan, brain size?
Sorry about terrible but very old pun.
Never mind the stoats. What about the thoats?
b&
It’s not hard to tell the difference between weasels and stoats – a weasel’s weasily recognised and a stoat’s stoatally different.
You know, I was trying to remember that joke but couldn’t, and then forgot to Google it. Thanks for posting it!
A gamekeeper of my youthful acquaintance told me his working definition of the difference. A weasel is a relatively fat beast, and needs to be gutted before you use it to clean out the inside of your twelve-bore shotgun, while a stoat is skinny enough that you can clean your gun without “ketching” it (the stoat) first.
I think you have that the wrong way round.
Quite possible – it was a long time ago. As a geologist, my interest fades as I realise that they’re nowhere near fossilisation yet. (Though I saw my second polecat just a couple of weeks ago, I don’t recall seeing a weasel or stoat in the wild, ever.)
I know it as a weasel is weasily DISTINGUISHED… etc!
Stoat=ferret?
Stoat != Ferret
The European ferret is a domesticated polecat Mustela putorious
The American ferret is a different (but similar) wild species. Mustela nigripes
Both much bigger than a stoat
Methinks it is like a weasel.
b&
Tis backed… – hang on – we have been here before in WEIT!
They’re almost as good as cats.
As I understand it, the animal called the stoat in the UK (Mustela erminea) is also native to North America, where it’s called an ermine. The weasel in the UK is also found in N. Am. but called the ‘least weasel’ (M. nivalis). Also common in the USA is the long-tailed weasel (M. frenata), which I believe is approx. ermine-sized.
Ferrets are right out.
Black-footed ferret – Mustela nigripes – rare animals that look like little bank robbers with their ‘masks’!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-footed_ferret
Sorry folks – these guys are definitely cuter than kittens!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Black_footes_ferret_pups.jpg
Yeah, it was a failed Monty Python reference. I know about BFFs. Specialized prairie-dog killers. An endangered-species-recovery success and trainwreck at the same time.
Sorry! I don’t recall that one but I was not allowed to watch it until the last series I think… past bedtime!
Stoats are not viewed in such favorable light in New Zealand.
Whose idea was it to let all the damn rabbits go in the first place?
Pantalaimon? Is that you?
Waaant! So cute. No weasels or stoats round these parts, oh well, have to make do with kittehs.
Here is a loevely photo from Flickr –
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ponty_cyclops/6204018891/