Long-tailed Weasel

Mustela frenata

The Long-tailed weasel is an endearing-looking species of mustelid common throughout America and southern Canada. Looking like a cute, curious, lively kitten, it is one of nature's most ferocious and relentless predators. Long-tailed weasels are quick, agile, and alert animals. They are good climbers and swimmers. Long-tailed weasels are not social animals; the sexes live apart from each other except during the mating season.

Family:

Mustela (ermines, ferrets, minks, and weasels)

Description:

Long-tailed weasels have a long slender body and head. Their long bodies and flexible backs allow them to enter the burrows of rodents and other animals that are smaller than them. On average, males are larger than females. These weasels have long, bushy tails that make up about 50% of their total body length. Long-tailed weasels have a small, narrow head with long whiskers, and short legs. Their fur is composed of short, soft underfur covered by shiny guard hair. They are cinnamon brown in color with white under parts that have a yellow tinge. Long-tailed weasels have a black tip to their tail, even in their all white winter phase. This differentiates them from the smaller least weasel, which doesn't have a black-tipped tail. Twice a year these weasels shed their fur, once in the spring and again in the fall. They shed in response to changes in day-length (photoperiod). The coat of animals in northern populations is white in the winter and brown in the summer, while those in southern populations are brown year round. Head and body length ranges from 8 to 10 inches with a tail length ranging from 3 to 6 inches long.

Habitat:

Their habitats range from small wooded areas to crop fields to suburban areas but do not include thick dense forests or deserts. Their nests and burrows are in rock piles, hollow logs and under barns.

Range:

The range of the long-tailed weasel includes most of North America, extending from just north of the United States-Canadian border and south to Central America to northern South America. Long-tailed weasels have the largest distribution of any mustelid in the Western Hemisphere.

Diet:

The long-tailed weasel is a carnivore. Most of its diet is made up of small mammals like mice, voles, rabbits, gophers and chipmunks. It will occasionally eat birds and insects. It has a very high rate of metabolism and eats about 40% of its body weight every day. In the summer they may add fruit and berries to its diet.

Breeding:

Mating for long-tailed weasels occurs in the mid-summer months. After copulation, implantation of the embryo is delayed and the egg does not begin to develop until March, making the total time that the female is pregnant around 280 days. Birth occurs from late April to early May, and the average size of the litter is six. Females mate in their first summer, but males wait until the following spring.

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