There are many beautiful and cute creatures in the world, but beneath these fascinating appearances in nature, it is likely that they hide their nature to kill in order to survive. For example, this small animal, how cute it looks, just look at the pictures below.
It is the stoat, also known as the short-tailed weasel, a member of the genus Ferrets of the family Mustelaidae. Stoats are slender, with short legs, long necks, and a triangular head. It has black eyes and rounded ears. In summer, the fur is brown on top and milky white on the bottom. In winter, the fur is white and the end of the tail is black.
Ferrets are one of the most speciesy families in the carnivorous order, and have always been known for their predatory skills in the animal kingdom, and stoats are certainly no exception. Maybe it's because the stoat's appearance is so cute that it's hard to associate it with words like "ferocious" and "killing machine," but when you know something about it, you probably don't think about it that way.
Ferrets live in North America, Europe and Asia, from Greenland, Canada and the Arctic islands of Siberia south to around 35 degrees north latitude. In mountains, swamps and forests, stoats use tree holes, rock crevices and rodent caves as their home.
The stoat preys mainly on voles and rats, but also preys on other small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and invertebrates, etc., and is a full-fledged carnivore.
Don't look at the small size of sables (the maximum weight is about 100 grams), but they can not only prey ten times more than their own (hares), but also their predation frequency is very high, and they also have the habit of storing food. On days when food is plentiful, energetic sables may kill prey far beyond what is needed on a daily basis and then store them for consumption when food is scarce.
Previously, researchers believed that ferrets had a much higher basal metabolic rate compared to other mammals of similar weight. Their digestive tract is short, so they need to eat small and frequently to maintain bodily functions.
At the same time, the heart rate of sables is hundreds of times per minute, and there are almost no fat reserves on the slender body, so they must eat about half of their own body weight every day to meet the physical consumption. This also prevents them from hibernating like some animals that live in cold areas.
Nature doesn't seem to allow them to hibernate comfortably, and of course gives sables some tips for getting over the winter, most notably in disguise. When it snows, the sable's fur changes from sepia to pure white (almost pure white), and its tail retains the black tip, which some researchers believe is to distract predators from its body.
The metabolism of the sable keeps it hungry at all times, while also making it a fast and effective hunter. With a keen sense of smell, sables can climb trees, swim, and burrow into rodent holes under the ground, day and night in search of prey.
When the stoat finds the prey, it will generally slowly follow the prey, secretly approach, and when the time is ripe, it will catapult out instantly, directly bite the neck of the prey and do not let go, until the prey loses its vitality.
Not only that, it is said that this animal will also confuse prey (such as rabbits) by twisting its body around its prey, and kill it with one blow after the prey loses its alertness, so this pre-war performance is also known as the "Weasel War Dance"!
If the above introduction does not make you feel the "ferocity" of the ferret, then after watching the ferret's record in New Zealand, I wonder if you will feel that the "killing machine" fully fits the description of it?
The hare was flooded as an alien species in New Zealand in the mid-nineteenth century, and the sable was introduced at the end of the nineteenth century to solve the rabbit problem. However, things did not go in the direction that people imagined, and for many years there was no significant decrease in hares, but other small native animals, especially birds.
So much so that many local people believe that stoats have wiped out many native bird, lizard and insect species. Stoats have even been hunted as pests, and methods to limit the reproduction of stoats have been studied...
Now, tell me what you think of the ferret.