Marbled polecat

The Marbled polecat or Vormela peregusna is a predatory species of the family of martens commonly found in Eastern Europe, Near East and Central Asia, and is named after its patterned fur.

The marbled polecat is similar in form to the steppe polecat and it has a head to body length from 29 to 38 centimetres and a tail length of between 15 to 22 centimetres.

The adults weigh between 370 to 730 g and in contrast to many other related species males and females are approximately of equal size. The adult body is pointed, long with a narrow trunk and short legs.

The top of the body is a dark brown ground color, which is covered with yellow spots and stripes. The belly is black and they have a striking black and white face color: The area around the mouth and a wide headband between the eyes and ears is white while the rest of the face is black. The ears are abnormally large. The tail is bushy and has a black tip.

Distribution and habitat
The animals are common in Eastern Europe and Asia. The range extends from the Balkans and Western Asia excluding the Arabian Peninsula over Southern Russia to Pakistan and isolated pockets occur in the Russian-Kazakh border region of the Chinese-Mongolian border.

Marbled polecat’s inhabit dry, treeless areas such as steppes, semi-deserts and deserts and grassy areas in foothills and on rare occasions they are observed in the mountains, where they were detected art altitudes of 3000 meters and animals have taken up residence in parks, vineyards and even housing estates.

Lifestyle
The lifestyle of Marbled polecat is very similar to that of the steppe polecat. They are primarily crepuscular or nocturnal, but sometimes go a day searching for food. They usually spend the day in an earthwork, which they have either dug themselves or taken from other animals.

Outside the breeding season they are solitary even though territories may overlap they tend to avoid each other.

When they feel threatened they can erect their body hair and fluff their tails and lean forward to look threatening as a warning signal also relying on their coloration to deter predators as they have a similar appearance to a skunk, and if the threat continues they can eject an evil smelling secretion from the anal gland as a final deterrent.

Marbled polecat’s hunt both on the surface, where they sometimes sit up in order to have a better overview, as well as in trees which they climb. Most frequently, however, they go into the underground tunnels and constructions of various rodent species to hunt as their main food include gerbils, voles, ground squirrel or hamsters and in addition birds and other vertebrates and insects.

Reproduction
Mating takes place from March to June and the gestation period of Marbled polecat’s usually lasts 45 days but this time period can be extended to up to eleven months, due to the dormancy and the delay associated with implantation.

The environmental conditions, especially temperature, affects the gestation period, with favourable environmental conditions meaning a short gestation period.

A female can have a litter of pups from a single pup to eight with an average four or five young. These are small and blind, but grow rapidly and after one month start to eat solid food for themselves. Females become sexually mature as early as three months, when males will take up to one year. Little is known about the life expectancy in the wild but in human care they can live as long as nine years old.

Six subspecies are distinguished:
Vormela peregusna peregusna: The subspecies living in southern Russia, in Southern Ukraine and Northern Caucasus.
Vormela peregusna euxina: The European subspecies is widespread in Croatia via Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia and Romania and Bulgaria, also in Moldova, in Southwestern Ukraine and in the Northwest of Turkey.
Vormela peregusna syriaca: Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Eastern Turkey, Southern Caucasus, Northern Iraq, northwestern Iran.
Vormela peregusna alpherakyi: Western Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Northern Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan.
Vormela peregusna pallidor: The first of the two sub species live isolated lives in the Omsk Oblast.
Vormela peregusna negans: Again, this subspecies is isolated from the others and lives in the eastern part of the border area of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia.

Name
Both genus and species name are not Latin words and Vormela, the genus name is formed from the German word “Wormlein” an old German word for “worms”. And Peregusna, the species name is derived from “pereguznya”, a Ukrainian name of Tigeriltisses.

Marbled polecat and humans
In the 20th Century the population numbers had declined radically due to hunting of their fur and more so, the destruction of their habitat . Numbers are also reduced by road kill, poisoning and traps meant for other animals.

The Southeast European subspecies of V. p. peregusna is listed on the IUCN Red List as endangered while the species as a whole is not yet threatened.

Where Marbled polecat’s occur in the vicinity of people they can break into chicken coops, or even steal food supplies from cabins. Mostly, however, they are considered useful because their main prey represented rodents.

In Afghanistan, they are sometimes kept half tame and used to control rats and mice. The polecat has a story attached to the name, which is an old Russian legend, and in the vernacular, the animal is also referred to as “Perewostschik”, translated as “translator” as according to tradition, the animal carries Siberian squirrels and stoats on its back on the great Siberian rivers as a ferryman.