Mustelidea-somers

Ferrets



The animal i am doing is the ferret. This animal is very interesting. Ferrets are warm blooded mammals inside the weasel family. The scientific name for it is mustelidea putorious fruo.

Family

There are many animals in the Mustelidea family. Here are the 4 that are closly related to the ferret. The first one is the weasel. The weasel has a very long and skinny body and can be very flexible. They differ in size ranging from 6-8 inches to 12-18 inches. Depending on the weather the color of there coat changes. My second animal is the European Polecat. European Polecats have dark brown fur with a lighter shade around the eyes. They have a long tail but short legs putting them slightly bigger then an weasel. The third one is the Black-Footed Ferret. It has a 5-6 inch tail and its body usually is 18-24 inches in length. My fourth and final animal is the Steppe Polecat. It is very similar to the European Polecat.

Movement- Ferrets are very swift. They have small webbed paws and have very sharp claws. During the day they like to sleep and are most active at dawn to dusk.

Metabolism- Ferrets are strict carnivores. They prefer a primarily meat diet and dont digest carbohydrates well. Many substitutes can be fed to ferrets like cat food or dog food. They use their sharp and long teeth to chew the food.

Growth and Development- Young ferrets take usually three months after being born to become independent. Then after six months becomes sexual maturity. Ferrets can grow to twenty inches in length that is including the tail.

Response to Stimuli- They really respond well to cage. That is the best housing for them. They train themselves to use the litter box and it doesn't take them to learn.

Reproduction- Gestation takes 42 days and the number of kits in a litter range from 3-7 but sometimes there could be more. Females can have 2 or 3 litters annually.

Classifacation Kingdom-animalia Phylum- chordata Class- mammalia Order- carnivoa Family- mustelidea Genus- mustela Species- m. putorius

Differences between males and females- Males are substanstionaly bigger in both weight and length to females. Females can give birth but males cannot.

Sources wikipedia.com dogbreed.com google.com