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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 ...
Mustelidae is a family of mammals in the order Carnivora, which includes weasels, badgers, otters, ferrets, martens, minks, and wolverines, and many other extant and extinct genera. A member of this family is called a mustelid; Mustelidae is the largest family in Carnivora, and its extant species are divided into eight subfamilies.
The black-footed ferret is entirely dependent on another keystone species, the prairie dog. A family of four ferrets eats 250 prairie dogs in a year; this requires a stable population of prairie dogs from an area of some 500 acres (2.0 km 2).
Like badgers, otters and minks, ferrets fall under the weasel family − animals that hunt prey by tunneling their way into the ground. At a few U.S. zoos you may also see black-footed ferrets, ...
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.
Mustelinae is a subfamily of family Mustelidae, including weasels, ferrets, and minks. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It was formerly defined in a paraphyletic manner to also include wolverines , martens , and many other mustelids, to the exclusion of the otters ( Lutrinae ).
Domesticated ferrets kept as pets are not native to the U.S., but black-footed ferrets have been part of the American prairie ecosystem for about 100,000 years, according to fossil records, and ...
The family Mustelidae, or mustelids (which also includes badgers, otters, and wolverines), is often referred to as the "weasel family". In the UK, the term "weasel" usually refers to the smallest species , the least weasel ( M. nivalis ), [ 1 ] the smallest carnivoran species.