Weasels up Trees: Pine and Beech Martens

Pine marten

In my survey of the weasel family, I have so far looked at the mustelines; those members of the family that are most closely related to the weasels themselves. Aside from the numerous kinds of "true" weasel, this has included stoats, polecats, and mink, but, of course, the mustelines are not the only members of the weasel family. It is now time to turn to a second grouping within the family, the marten-like animals.

The oldest fossil martens date from the Pliocene; the epoch immediately before the great Pleistocene Ice Ages. By this time, they had already begun to develop some of their distinctive features. Martens are much larger than true weasels, and within, or slightly above, the size range of the largest mustelines, the European polecats. Where mustelines have evolved narrow bodies for chasing prey down into their burrows, the martens have never needed to do so, and while they have the short legs typical of most members of the family, their bodies are noticeably more compact. They are generally brown in colour, and most species have a highly visible 'bib' of paler - usually yellowish - fur on their chest.

The most distinctive feature of the martens is that they spend much of their lives in the trees, quite a different habitat from other members of the family. By heading up into the trees, they have been able to find a source of food quite away from their ground-dwelling kin, and over much of their range (although by no means all), they are the only small carnivores that hunt among the branches.