Creature Feature #600: Polecat

There are several species of Polecat, long-bodied mustelids, but the one most familiar to us is the European Polecat. She can be found in western Europe and north Africa. Her favoured diet are small mammals, but she will also eat birds and amphibians. Polecat mating is brutal, with no courtship rituals, the male simply grabs the female by the neck, drags her about (which stimulates ovulation), before mating with her for up to an hour. She is the ancestor of the domestic ferret, and the two can readily interbreed. Now feral ferrets have become established in the wild, usually in isolated environments where no mammalian predators are already established.