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| Sable |
Today,
true pine martens venture no further east than the Ural Mountains. But it was not always so, for, at one time, their immediate ancestors ranged across a wider swathe of forest. During the Ice Ages, those in the east became separated from their western cousins, and became a distinct species. Today, beyond the Urals we find, not pine martens, but their close relatives, the
sables (
Martes zibellina).
Indeed, sables and pine martens still look very similar, although the former have shorter tails, and the 'bib' on their chests is usually less distinct, varying from pale brown to yellowish. Their fur is rich and luxurious, especially during the winter months, and can be anything from pale brown to the near-black colour for which they are most famous. Largely on the basis of this variation in colour, up to thirty different subspecies have been identified, although, personally, I suspect that the animal is just rather variable in appearance, and many of these subspecies won't turn out to be valid under more thorough investigation.
Like pine martens, sables inhabit both deciduous and coniferous forest, although they prefer the latter. They were once found across the vast forests of Siberia, into Mongolia and northern China, and, even today, they inhabit the islands of Hokkaido and Sakhalin either side of the Japanese/Russian border. They can, of course, climb trees, but they seem to do so less than pine martens do, and they make their homes in underground burrows, sometimes of considerable length, with entrances partially concealed beneath tree roots or similar cover.
