Egyptian Weasels
Here’s a really interesting post from Nayer Youakim. Weasels are abundant in the heart of the city of Alexandria. Fascinating … but why are there not more urban weasels elsewhere?
Egyptian Weasels in Alexandria, 2019: Nayer Youakim’s account of Egyptian (or Least) Weasel watching.
Jon
7 Comments
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Vladimir Dinets
Least weasels occur in city parks in Eastern Europe and Russia, and ermines live in houses in many Arctic settlements.
Interesting paper on taxonomy, by the way. I don’t think it’s a good idea to stop recognizing this form as a subspecies. Also, I wonder why the authors didn’t mention the most obvious reason for size increase: adaptation to predation on rats in cities.
Seems like the weasel is more common in Alexandria than in Cairo. I wonder if Alexandria was the point of initial introduction.-
Edo van Uchelen
Dear Vladimir, in the Netherlands weasels ans stoats tends to avoid human settlements (probably due to predation by domestic cast) interesting to read they do not in Eastern Europe. I think the weasels are aslo that big because there are no stoats, this was observed also in nature in Belarus, greetings Edo van Uchelen
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Vladimir Dinets
There are stoats in Belarus 🙂 There are many populations of least weasels that leave in places with no stoats and they all tend to be large, but Egyptian ones are the largest.
Urban weasels in Eastern Europe have very high mortality, but mostly from dogs rather than cats, at least according to one study (I’m trying to remember which one but can’t find it, sorry).
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Nayer Youakim
Sorry Edo! Please drop me an email if you’re still after further details (nayer_y@hotmail.com).
I visited the same site a few months ago, in mid-September, around 2am. There were plenty more cats around, and I didn’t see the same numbers of weasels as before, but it was still quite easy to see a few different animals within 10 minutes or so of my arrival.
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Terry Townshend
Lots of Siberian Weasels in Beijing! https://birdingbeijing.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/a-guide-to-the-mammals-of-beijing-29-april-2018.pdf