Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Mustelidae > Ictonyx > Ictonyx striatus

Ictonyx striatus (Striped Polecat)

Wikipedia Abstract

The striped polecat (Ictonyx striatus, also called the African polecat, zoril, zorille, zorilla, Cape polecat, and African skunk) is a member of the family Mustelidae (weasels), though in actuality, it somewhat resembles a skunk. The name "zorilla" comes from the word "zorro", which in Spanish means "fox". It lives predominantly in dry and arid climates, such as the savannahs and open country of Central, Southern, and sub-Saharan Africa, excluding the Congo basin and the more coastal areas of West Africa.
View Wikipedia Record: Ictonyx striatus

Infraspecies

Ictonyx striatus albescens
Ictonyx striatus arenarius (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus elgonis
Ictonyx striatus erythreae (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus ghansiensis (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus giganteus (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus intermedius
Ictonyx striatus kalaharicus (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus lancasteri (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus limpopoensis (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus maximus (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus obscuratus
Ictonyx striatus orangiae (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus ovamboensis (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus pretoriae (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus senegalensis
Ictonyx striatus shoae
Ictonyx striatus shortridgei (Zorilla)
Ictonyx striatus striatus (Zorilla)

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
4
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
25
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 9.99
EDGE Score: 2.4
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  2.006 lbs (910 g)
Birth Weight [1]  15 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates)
Diet - Ectothermic [2]  10 %
Diet - Endothermic [2]  40 %
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  40 %
Diet - Vertibrates [2]  10 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  10 months 4 days
Male Maturity [1]  1 year
Gestation [1]  36 days
Litter Size [1]  2
Litters / Year [1]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  14 years
Nocturnal [3]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [4]  14 inches (36 cm)
Weaning [1]  79 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa Kenya, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania No
Eastern Afromontane Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe No
Horn of Africa Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Oman, Somalia, Yemen No
Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland No
Succulent Karoo Namibia, South Africa No

Prey / Diet

Otomys irroratus (vlei rat)[5]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Canis mesomelas (Black-backed Jackal)[6]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

Citations

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
♦ 3Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 4Nathan 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
♦ 5Otomys irroratus, G. Bronner, S. Gordon, and J. Meester, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 308, pp. 1-6 (1988)
♦ 6Canis mesomelas, Lyle R. Walton and Damien O. Joly, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 715, pp. 1–9 (2003)
♦ 7International Flea Database
♦ 8Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
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