Mustela nigripes

The black-footed ferret, also known as the American polecat or prairie dog hunter, is a mustelid species native to central North America. It is roughly the size of a mink and is similar in appearance to the European polecat and the Asian steppe polecat. It is largely nocturnal and solitary, except when breeding or raising litters. Up to 90% of its diet is composed of prairie dogs.

Mustela nigripes

USFWS Mountain Prairie · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
black-footed ferretPBDB
Sits inside
MustelaPBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Mustelidae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mustelidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 81 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 210 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 12 of 12 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 12 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.3–1.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.1–1.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.0–950 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences950 ka–887 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences887 ka–823 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences823 ka–760 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences760 ka–697 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences697 ka–633 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences633 ka–570 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences570 ka–507 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences507 ka–443 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences443 ka–380 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences380 ka–317 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences317 ka–253 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences253 ka–190 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences190 ka–127 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences127 ka–63 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences63 ka–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences210 ka – 129 ka1.9 Mya0 Mya

12 occurrences of Mustela nigripes on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

12 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Loveland Loess — 40.50°N, 98.10°W

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The named rock units Mustela nigripes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mustela nigripes and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Mustela nigripes and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

278 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Mustela nigripes, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

11 references

Each of the 12 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Mustela nigripes

Credit
USFWS Mountain Prairie
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Mustela nigripes · mcz:mamm:43727

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMustela through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Audubon and Bachman 1851)