Ermine mink

Ermine weasel has the scientific name Mustela Erminea who live in the forest, in the farmland, on the hills. In nature they are distributed in North America, Northern Europe, North and Central Asia. Ermine mink is also brought to breed in New Zealand.

This beautiful weasel normally likes to live alone, they nest in cracked rocks, in old houses or in underground caves. They mainly hunt at night, sometimes people see them during the day. The main food is rats, birds and lizards, which can catch small fish, occasionally stealing eggs from bird nests.

Ermine weasels are very skilled hunting animals, they can kill their prey with a sharp and precise bite right after the prey's neck. Even these skilful weasels can kill and eat many larger animals than their own. In addition, they are great swimmers, so the bad prey hunted by Ermine mink is really hard to escape. When in danger, they release unpleasant odors from the tail glands to ward off the enemy.

Short-tailed Ermine mink, males are larger than females, brown on their backs, yellow or white yellow underneath. In winter, in cold areas, their fur turns white, only the tail is black. This is how they camouflage in snow. For people buying and selling fur, when the winter starts, the white fur of Ermine also starts to get high price.

Children can breed from 3 or 4 months old. The mating season takes place from July to September. After the gestation period is about 255 days, the offspring will give birth between April and May, each of which has 4-5 young children. The ferret father is " very sure", and helps his mother to take care of and raise her young children. Young children are almost unable to do anything at birth, their eyes have not been opened until 3 weeks of age. After 7 weeks of age, young males were larger in size than their mothers.

In the West, for a while there were senior nobles who were allowed to wear Ermine mink coat, which later became part of a sign that it was an important court officer.

The average length of adult males is about 24cm, the tail is about 10cm long, weighs about 200g. The number of these species is decreasing.