Vormela peregusna
The marbled polecat is a small mustelid belonging to the subfamily Ictonychinae. It is the only living member of the genus Vormela. Marbled polecats are generally found in the drier areas and grasslands of southeastern Europe to western China. Like other members of the Ictonychinae, it can emit a strong-smelling secretion from anal sacs under the tail when threatened.

Laszlo Szabo-Szeley © AVESTOURS · Attribution · 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- Sits inside
- VormelaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Mustelidae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Mustelidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Vormela peregusna 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
4 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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
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The named rock units Vormela peregusna has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Vormela peregusna and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Vormela peregusna and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
79 taxa- Canis2 sites
- Equus2 sites
- Erinaceus2 sites
- Felis2 sites
- Hystrix2 sites
- Lutra2 sites
- Martes foina2 sites
- Meles meles2 sites
- Panthera gombaszoegensis2 sites
- Praemegaceros verticornis2 sites
- Stephanorhinus etruscus2 sites
- Apodemus1 site
- Apodemus mystacinus1 site
- Arvicola1 site
- Bison1 site
- Bos1 site
- Buglossoides arvense1 site
- Canidae1 site
- Canis etruscus1 site
- Capra1 site
- Celtis1 site
- Cervidae1 site
- cf. Pontoceros sp.1 site
- Crocidura1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Vormela peregusna, 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
4 references- Pleistocene Mustelidae (Carnivora) from Paleolithic site in Kudaro Caves in the Caucasus1
- Subsistence patterns of Early Pleistocene hominids in the Levant - taphonomic evidence from the 'Ubeidiya Formation1
- The jaguar - Panthera onca gombaszoegensis (Kretzoi, 1938) (Carnivora: Felidae) in the late Lower Pleistocene Akhalkalaki (South Georgia: Transcaucasia) and its evolutionary and ecological significance.1
- The small mammals of the Guela Cave1
Each of the 4 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 content1
Picture of Vormela peregusna
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Laszlo Szabo-Szeley © AVESTOURS
- Licence
- Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Vormela peregusna was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itVormela through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Güldenstädt 1770)