Weasels are mammals of the genus Mustela of the family Mustelidae. The genus Mustela includes the least weasels, polecats, stoats, ferrets, and European mink. Members of this genus are small, active predators, with long and slender bodies and short legs. The family Mustelidae, or mustelids (which also includes badgers, otters, and wolverines), is often referred to as the "weasel family". In Great Britain, the term "weasel" usually refers to the smallest species, the least weasel (M. nivalis), the smallest carnivoran species.
Least weasels vary in length from , females being smaller than the males, and usually have red or brown upper coats and white bellies; some populations of some species moult to a wholly white coat in winter. They have long, slender bodies, which enable them to follow their prey into burrows. Their tails may be from long. In 2021, both Neovison species, along with the long-tailed weasel (Mustela frenata), Amazon weasel (Mustela africana) and Colombian weasel (Mustela felipei) were moved to the genus Neogale, as the clade containing these five species was found to be fully distinct from Mustela.
Taxonomy
The genus name Mustela comes from the Latin word for weasel combining the words mus meaning "mouse" and telum meaning "javelin" for its long body.
Species
The following information is according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System and MammalDiversity.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Subgenus
! Image !! Scientific name !! Common name !! Distribution
|-
| rowspan="7" |Mustela
|120px ||Mustela altaica || Mountain weasel ||Northern and Southern Asia
|-
| ||Mustela aistoodonnivalis || Missing-toothed pygmy weasel || Shaanxi and Sichuan, China
|-
|120px ||Mustela erminea || Stoat, Beringian ermine, Eurasian ermine, or<br />short-tailed weasel || Europe and Northern Asia<br />Arctic Canada and Alaska (United States)<br />Southern Asia (non-native)<br />New Zealand (non-native)
|-
|frameless|121x121px
|Mustela haidarum <small>Preble, 1898</small>
|Haida ermine
|Haida Gwaii (British Columbia, Canada) and Alexander Archipelago (Alaska, United States)
|-
|120px ||Mustela kathiah || Yellow-bellied weasel || Southern Asia
|-
|120px ||Mustela nivalis || Least weasel || Europe, North Africa and Northern Asia <br />North America<br />Southern Asia (non-native)<br />New Zealand (non-native)
|-
|frameless|124x124px
|Mustela richardsonii <small>Bonaparte, 1838</small>
|American ermine
|Most of North America south of Alaska and the Arctic Circle; eastern Nunavut and Baffin Island
|-
| rowspan="6" |Lutreola
|120px ||Mustela itatsi || Japanese weasel ||Japan and formerly Sakhalin Island, Russia
|-
|120px ||Mustela lutreola || European mink || Europe
|-
| ||Mustela lutreolina || Indonesian mountain weasel || Southeastern Asia
|-
| ||Mustela nudipes || Malayan weasel|| Southeastern Asia
|-
|120px ||Mustela sibirica || Siberian weasel || Europe and Northern Asia<br />Southern Asia
|-
|120px ||Mustela strigidorsa || Back-striped weasel || Southern Asia
|-
| rowspan="4" |Putorius
|120px ||Mustela eversmanii || Steppe polecat || Southeast Europe and Northern Asia<br />Southern Asia
|-
|frameless|120x120px
|Mustela furo <small>Linnaeus, 1758</small>
|Domestic ferret
|Domestic
Worldwide (domesticated); New Zealand (non-native)
|-
|120px ||Mustela putorius || European polecat|| Europe, North Africa and Northern Asia
|-
|120px ||Mustela nigripes ||Black-footed ferret || North America
|}
<sup>1</sup> Europe and Northern Asia division excludes China.
Cultural meanings
Weasels have been assigned a variety of cultural meanings.
In Greek culture, a weasel near one's house is a sign of bad luck, even evil, "especially if there is in the household a girl about to be married", since the animal (based on its Greek etymology) was thought to be an unhappy bride who was transformed into a weasel and consequently delights in destroying wedding dresses.
In early-modern Mecklenburg, Germany, amulets from weasels were deemed to have strong magic; the period between 15 August and 8 September was specifically designated for the killing of weasels.
According to Daniel Defoe also, meeting a weasel is a bad omen. In English-speaking areas, weasel can be an insult, noun or verb, for someone regarded as sneaky, conniving or untrustworthy. Similarly, "weasel words" is a critical term for words or phrasing that are vague, misleading or equivocal.
Japanese superstitions
right|thumb|180px|"Ten" from the [[Gazu Hyakki Yagyō by Sekien Toriyama]]
180px|thumb|Japanese weasel
In Japan, were seen as yōkai (causing strange occurrences). According to the encyclopedia Wakan Sansai Zue from the Edo period, a pack of weasels would cause conflagrations, and the cry of a weasel was considered a harbinger of misfortune. In the Niigata Prefecture, the sound of a pack of weasels making a rustle resembled six people hulling rice, so was called the "weasel's six-person mortar", and it was an omen for one's home to decline or flourish. It is said that when people chase after this sound, the sound stops.
They are also said to shapeshift like the fox (kitsune) or tanuki, and the nyūdō-bōzu told about in legends in the Tōhoku region and the Chūbu region are considered weasels in disguise, and they are also said to shapeshift into ōnyūdō and little monks. and "ten" were considered to be weasels that have reached one hundred years of age and became yōkai that possessed supernatural powers. Another theory is that when weasels reach several hundred years of age, they become mujina (Japanese badgers).
In Japanese, weasels are called and in the Tōhoku Region and Shinshu, it was believed that there were families that were able to use a certain practice to freely use kudagitsune as iizuna-tsukai or kitsune-mochi. It is said that Mount Iizuna, from the Nagano Prefecture, got its name due to how the gods gave people mastery of this technique from there.
According to the folklorist Mutō Tetsujō, "They are called izuna in the Senboku District,