Where is the Weasel? 

    The weasel has a variety of preferred habitats, ranging from meadows to mountains to even the cold tundra.  Least Weasels occupy North America and Canada. They especially like Alaska, Northeastern states, and the Great Lakes region. The Least weasel is also found as far as New Zealand. The weasel has the ability to successfully adapt to these extremely different environments.

 

 

 

      A weasel's home is considered a den.  This den can be a burrow, a hollow log, or even a hole near a wall.  Weasel's seem to prefer compacted spaces, like burrows, but are surprisingly bad diggers. 

    You may be wondering how they occupy such neatly formed holes, the answer is they raid the homes of their prey. If they are lucky they will come across an abandoned burrow.

  A paleontology study strongly concluded that weasels first appeared in Europe approximately 40 million years ago.  As you can see above weasels have migrated substantially from Europe. (Beer 2008)

Weasels don't travel a significant amount, when compared to other mammals, but travel is necessary when prey populations diminish.  The weasels unfortunately have to relocate to a region consisting of more potential prey items.   

 

The Map below shows the areas including populations of Mustela nivalis. They live primarily above the equator, enjoying the cold and warm habitats.

Map retrieved from http://commons.wikimedia.org

  Want to see the Weasel change colors click the footprints!

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