The stoat (Mustela erminea) is slightly larger than our smallest marten -like: the weasel. He has a long body with a maroon coat, a yellow-white belly and a distinctive black tail tip. In winter they are all white, the tail tip remains black.
Ermine fur(winter white) is very dense planted with about 20,000 hairs on 1cm², and was considered very precious. Everyone knows it as royal fur coat.
An average male is 297 mm, tail length 117 mm and body weight 200 to 445 grams. He is 50% larger than the female.
This carnivore is with breaks active at night and during the day. The stoat is a fierce hunter and pursuer, climbs, jumps and swims well. He interrupts his momentum in marten gallop often to set up on his hind legs and tracks the neighborhood. (This behavior is called "bowling" (standing upright) in Dutch.)
The ermine eats about 25% of its body weight per day, mainly rodents like voles, but also larger prey like birds, eggs and lagomorphs.
They are hunted by owls and foxes.
They live solitary in territories of 20 ha. with a lot of coverage, as dunes because of the many rabbits, who they haunt in their tunnels.
In April - May five to twelve kits are born.
Stoats could be ten years, but on average they are only one and a half years old.
Feces are 3 to 6 mm thick and 4 to 8 mm long, braided, long and pointed. Fresh they are shiny and black, later gray and velvety.
He takes by other animals (rabbits, moles) dugged and natural caves with a minimum diameter of 5 cm in use. Stoats sometimes drag their prey to their lair, and establish a food reserve.
That an ermine sucks his prey is a myth.
Attacks on pets do not come often.