Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Mustelidae > Mustela > Mustela nigripesMustela nigripes (Black-footed Ferret)Synonyms: Putorius nigripes The black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes), also known as the American polecat or prairie dog hunter, is a species of mustelid native to central North America. It is listed as endangered by the IUCN, because of its very small and restricted populations. First discovered by Audubon and Bachman in 1851, the species declined throughout the 20th century, primarily as a result of decreases in prairie dog populations and sylvatic plague. It was declared extinct in 1979 until Lucille Hogg's dog brought a dead black-footed ferret to her door in Meeteetse, Wyoming in 1981. That remnant population of a few dozen ferrets lasted there until the animals were considered extinct in the wild in 1987. However, a captive breeding program launched by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service resulted in i |
Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) Unique (100) Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) Unique & Vulnerable (100) ED Score: 5.31 EDGE Score: 3.92 |
| Adult Weight [1] | 2.251 lbs (1.021 kg) | | Birth Weight [1] | 7.4 grams |  | | Diet [2] | Carnivore (Vertebrates) | | Diet - Endothermic [2] | 100 % | | Forages - Ground [2] | 100 % | | | Female Maturity [1] | 1 year | | Male Maturity [1] | 1 year | | | Gestation [1] | 43 days | | Litter Size [1] | 3 | | Litters / Year [3] | 1 | | Maximum Longevity [1] | 9 years | | Nocturnal [2] | Yes | | Snout to Vent Length [3] | 17 inches (43 cm) |
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Habitat Vegetation Classification |
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Location |
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Intermountain Basins Big Sagebrush Desert Shrubland |
United States (Oregon, Wyoming, Colorado, California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah); Canada |
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Intermountain Basins Big Sagebrush Steppe |
Canada (British Columbia); United States (Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Colorado) |
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Intermountain Low & Black Sagebrush Steppe & Shrubland |
United States (Idaho, Montana, Utah, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada) |
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Intermountain Semi-Desert Grassland |
United States (Utah, New Mexico, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, California, Montana, Oregon, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona) |
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Attributes / relations provided by ♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774 ♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027 ♦ 3Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109 ♦ 4Rehabilitation of a species: The black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes), Miller, B.; Biggins, D.; Hanebury, L.; Conway, C.; Wemmer, C., Ninth Annual Proceedings of the National Wildlife Rehabilitation Association, pages 183192 ♦ 5Cynomys ludovicianus, John L. Hoogland, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 535, pp. 1-10 (1996) ♦ 6Nunn, C. L., and S. Altizer. 2005. The Global Mammal Parasite Database: An Online Resource for Infectious Disease Records in Wild Primates. Evolutionary Anthroplogy 14:1-2. ♦ 7International Flea Database♦ 8Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London |
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0
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