Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Name that Critter

Ever seen anything like this guy?    We found one today in the road.   It would have been inappropriate to take a picture of it in its current state of.....uh.....inanimacy, so we got this pic from here. We hope there are more of these guys around.

ID below the fold.
Mustela nivalis.  [That's the Least Weasel to those of you who don't get a kick out of Latin taxonomy, which is pretty much most of everyone I know, so I guess I just put that up there for me.]   At least that's what we think it was.   Ours was on the small side. 

They are the worlds smallest carnivore.  They eat mice and that's a good thing out here because we have way more than our share.    This is the extreme south end of their range and normally they turn white in the winter.   Ours was still brown and we think it's because we don't have continuous snow on the ground.   Cool!
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