Stone marten: appearance, behavior and nutrition

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

Do you know why the stone marten is called that? Where does this cute little animal live? What does it eat? Can a stone marten live at home? We will try to answer these and many other questions in this article.

External Features

Marten is one of the most widespread predators of the class Mammals. This small animal, which has a slender and flexible body, fluffy hair, is a serious enemy for many birds and animals. To date, scientists distinguish 8 types of martens. The most famous of them are stone and forest varieties.

The stone marten has an oblong slender body, fluffy and long tail. Her limbs are short. This animal has a triangular face. The ears are large and set high. Many people think that this animal is very similar to a ferret. There are undeniable similarities. The main difference is a bifurcated light spot on the marten's chest, passing in two stripes to the front legs. But you need to know that the Asian population of the species may not have a spot at all.

The coat of the animal is rather hard, dyed grayish-brownor brownish-yellow. The eyes are dark. At night they glow reddish. The stone marten, the photo of which you can see in this article, leaves clearer marks on the ground than its forest "relative". This little predator moves by jumping, while the hind legs clearly fall on the trail of the front ones. The result is prints that hunters call "two-beads".

The white-headed marten (stone marten) differs significantly from the forest individual. She has a slightly longer tail, a yellowish spot on her neck, a darker nose, and feet are covered with hair. The stone marten is heavier and smaller in size. The body length of an adult animal is 55 centimeters, the tail is 30 cm. Weight is from 1 to 2.5 kg. Males are noticeably larger than females.

Stone marten: distribution area

This animal lives in the treeless mountains of Altai in the Caucasus, in the floodplain forests of Ciscaucasia, and sometimes in cities and parks of the southern regions of Russia. This type of marten is widespread in Eurasia, on the Iberian Peninsula, in Mongolia and the Himalayas.

It is also found in Ukraine, in the B altic countries, Kazakhstan, Belarus, in Central and Central Asia. This animal does not live in forests, preferring open spaces with small shrubs and rare single trees, rocky terrain. That is why the animal was so named. Surprisingly, this small animal is not afraid of people at all, it can often be found in basements and sheds, in the attics of residential buildings.

Are you interested in the question of home maintenance? In captivity, stonemarten practically does not live. For this reason, it is rarely seen even in large zoos. True, in Germany, in the Central Zoo of Berlin, the Germans managed to create almost ideal conditions, as close as possible to the natural habitat.

Subspecies

Biologists divided all stone martens into four subspecies.

European white lady. Lives in some areas of the European part of the former Soviet Union and Western Europe.
Crimean white lady. As it is already clear, this is a resident of the Crimea. It has a slightly different tooth structure from other relatives, a small skull and a lighter color.
Caucasian white lady. This is the largest subspecies living in Transcaucasia, having valuable shiny fur and beautiful underfur.
The Central Asian white lady chose Altai as her place of residence. Her chest patch is poorly developed. Has very thick fur.

Behavior in the natural environment

The stone marten is active at dusk and at night. During the day they sleep in the hollows of trees or nest in the nests of feathered predators. Martens spend most of their lives on the branches of trees, so they feel very confident there - they climb trunks, jump from branch to branch. Their jump can reach 4 meters.

Martens move rapidly on the ground. Each individual owns its own allotment, the boundaries of which it marks with a special secret. If the territory is violated by a stranger, then a conflict is possible between the animals. True, in males and females, the ranges quite often intersect. The area of such allotments varies depending on the time of year. There are more plots in summer than in winter.

What the marten eats

Martens are predators, so the basis of their diet is small animals - rodents, squirrels, rabbits, birds. Rural residents note that these animals are quite frequent guests of chicken coops. When the birds begin to rush about in a panic, even a completely full marten will not be able to suppress its hunting instinct - it will pass all the birds.

Having caught their prey, predators break her vertebrae, suck out warm blood with her tongue folded into a tube. The stone marten is able to catch up and grab a bird that has lost its vigilance or climb into a nest and eat eggs. In summer, these animals catch various insects, frogs. Sometimes martens add plant foods to their diet, usually berries or fruits.

Hunting for stone marten with traps

For an experienced hunter, a marten is a worthy trophy. This is a cunning, agile and fast predator, which is able to bypass various obstacles during the chase, maneuver and hide in the trees. The official season starts in November. As we have already said, this is a nocturnal predator (stone marten). Hunting is possible only at night. Only in this case you will not return home empty-handed.

The most effective way to hunt this animal is to use traps. The most commonly used trap number 1. Each hunter has his own secrets of setting them up. Let's share one of them. Traps should be placed on tree branches at a height of one to two meters, then they will not be covered with snow. And when the animal falls into a trap, it will not have a chance to get out (in limbo).

The trap with bait must be placed near well-trodden forest paths. Hunting for a marten (traps) is not mass, since the number of these animals is not too large. In addition, it is quite difficult to get such an animal. Nevertheless, for the most adventurous hunters, the marten is a welcome trophy.