Clearly, the advantage here is to the stoat. Look how fast that damn thing is!
A stoat is another name for the short-tailed weasel (Mustela erminea), which, when it turns white in winter, is known as the ermine.
This play behavior prepares the young stoat for its life as a vicious predator. To see that in action, Attenborough has a video of a stoat chasing and killing a rabbit, though it may offend the gentle-hearted.
Note that the stoat’s jumping on the cat’s back and neck is exactly what it does in nature when making a kill.
h/t: SGM
jeez – why don’t the cat just kill it?
I’m sometimes amazed by how the desire to play (and tolerance of other individuals’ desire to play) is so widespread among mammals…
My cat needs one of those. That’d larn ‘im!
I think the cat knows it’s play.
So does the stoat, though. Sometimes the stoat lets the cat win. Dogs play the same eternal game: everybody gets to win.
Master Yoda vs. Darth Sidious!
The cat really doesn’t seem to be trying that hard.
I got that impression too. I thyink, if it got serious, it could put the stoat down, albeit at the cost of a few bites.
It’s astonishing how a bit of socialising with a different species can alter an animal’s behaviour. Granted, the cat has had thousands of years of artificial selection making it more kittenish and playful (nothing compared to what we have done to dogs of course) but that stoat is really only a couple of missed meals away from being a potential kitty-killer. The way it climbs along the cat’s back to its neck…
I think that the stoat thinks that the cat is another stoat.
Which is good for the cat, that stoat could run circles around the cat faster than the cat could turn.
I suspect that in the wild a feral cat would give a much better accounting of itself assuming that the 2 species ever interacted.
And the stoat would select easier prey.
Like rabbits.
Read Raising the Peaceable Kingdom: What Animals Can Teach Us About the Social Origins of Tolerance and Friendship by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.
First, I misread the headline as, “Cat versus toast,” and had visions of a perpetual vortex of feline and buttered bread.
Then, I read, “Cat versus thoat,” and wondered where one found a six-legged horse and what possible competition there could be between one and a cat — or, perhaps, not a cat but a banth? In which case it would be a rather bloody affair, to be sure.
Finally, I watched the video and realized, methinks, ’tis not unlike a weasel….
b&
They’re weasely distinguished – a stoat is stoatally different.
I’ll get my coat…
Oops, forgot to read all the posts first – sorry.
That’s priceless! Good to see a little critter hold their own for a change!
Totally Off Topic (except it involves animals, viz. ibex) I just came across this by accident:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1320728/Herd-mountain-goats-climb-160ft-near-vertical-Cingino-dam-Italian-Alps.html
Apologies if y’all have seen it before
I saw a stoat or weasel a few days ago, while walking on the South Downs near Eastbourne. The first time I’ve seen one in the wild.
If you think this is fast, wait until you see two stoats having a go at each other. Last year I was out for a walk when a blurry brown object slowly moved across the path in front of me. On getting closer I realised the object was an indeterminable number of small mammals circling each other at extraordinary speed. Closer still and they stopped to look at me (for about half a second) allowing me to see that it was actually two stoats. Whether they were playing or fighting I don’t know, though the noises suggested fighting.
How to tell the difference between a weasel and a stoat.
A weasel is weasely recognised and a stoat is stoately different.
Nooo, now I’m stuck in the Youtube furry critters corner again! My recommendations will contain ferrets, cats, dogs, hedgehogs, crows and whatnot for weeks to come! Just like when Matthew Cobb posted those ferrets in a bowl of package material.
Working up quite an appetite
You have just reinforced my opinion of Russians! To record and not intervene! Disgusting!!!