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The European polecat originated in Western Europe during the Middle Pleistocene, with its closest living relatives being the steppe polecat, the black-footed ferret and the European mink. With the two former species, it can produce fertile offspring, [ 11 ] though hybrids between it and the latter species tend to be sterile, and are ...
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 ...
In 1877, American historian Elliott Coues split the Putorius into multiple subgenuses and reclassified only the European polecat, domestic ferret and steppe polecat into Putorius. The black-footed ferret, which had features of Putorius and Gale (a subgenus split from Putorius), was put into its own subgenus Cynomyonax. [2]
The birth of the two kits signifies ‘a major milestone’ in preserving endangered species, say conservationists
Polecat is a common name for several mustelid species in the order Carnivora and subfamilies Ictonychinae [1] and Mustelinae. Polecats do not form a single taxonomic rank (i.e. clade ). The name is applied to several species with broad similarities to European polecats , such as having a dark mask-like marking across the face.
The ferret (Mustela furo) is a small, domesticated species belonging to the family Mustelidae. The ferret is most likely a domesticated form of the wild European polecat (Mustela putorius), as evidenced by the ferret's ability to interbreed with European polecats and produce hybrid offspring. Physically, ferrets resemble other mustelids because ...
Steppe polecat: Southeast Europe and Northern Asia Southern Asia Mustela furo Linnaeus, 1758: Domestic ferret: Domestic Worldwide (domesticated); New Zealand (non-native) Mustela putorius Linnaeus, 1758: European polecat: Europe, North Africa and Northern Asia Mustela nigripes (Audubon and Bachman, 1851) Black-footed ferret: North America
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.