Marbled Polecat

About the Marbled Polecat

The marbled polecat (Vormela peregusna) is a small mustelid belonging to the subfamily Ictonychinae. It is the only living member of the genus Vormela. Marbled polecats are generally found in the drier areas and grasslands of southeastern Europe to western China. Like other members of the Ictonychinae, it can emit a strong-smelling secretion from anal sacs under the tail when threatened.

The oldest scientific description of a marbled polecat was published in 1770, when Baltic German naturalist Johann Anton Güldenstädt reported the species living in the steppes of the lower Don River area in what is now Rostov Oblast, Russia. Believing it to be a member of the genus Mustela, he named this species Mustela peregusna. The specific name comes from perehuznya (перегузня), which is Ukrainian for "polecat". The following year, German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas studied a variant of marbled polecat found along the Volga River in southern Russia and named it Mustela sarmatica, believing it to be a new species. In 1884, German ornithologist August Wilhelm Heinrich Blasius analysed specimens attributed to M. sarmatica and determined that the species belonged in a separate subgenus... Wikipedia →