Identification trouble: American ermine
On the weekend with my spare time I sat and thought about the Mustela genus. Further In my research I saw on the mammal database and wikipedia that there were three species of stoat or ermine. I already had known about the regular stoat, Mustela erminea, but as I became more aware of taxonomic split of species is so common that the species I saw a week ago can change instantly. I thought are the species I saw years ago subspecies or full species, or have the merged/diverted. So I was thinking that when I was 9 in 2019 was the stoat that I saw an American stoat, Mustela richardsonii, or a regular stoat, Mustela erminea. I wanted your thoughts on the matter. I saw the species near Minneapolis, in the suburban area of Eagan. We got extremely lucky with the sighting and whoever wants to go I very much don’t recommend going. You are better of in the Sax zim bog. Any ways calling all mustelid expert.
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Jon Hall
I had assumed that all the stoats in the lower 48 now M. richardsonii but after looking again it seems that isn’t the case, with some erminea found in some of the north west. It looks like Sax Zim ought to be just Richardsoni if you check the reference paper that is listed on the species account on mammaldiversity.org (worth checking there always for questions like this) and that is also confirmed by inaturalist records …. but worth asking for other opinions for sure.