Weasel Facts

About the weasel

The genus covers stoats, ferrets, polecats, European mink and least weasels. Their wider family, the mustelids, also takes in badgers, otters and wolverines and people often call it the weasel family. British speakers usually mean the least weasel when they say weasel, and it is the smallest carnivoran species of all.

Least weasels run 173 to 217 mm long, with females smaller than males, plus a tail of 34 to 52 mm. They usually have red or brown backs and white bellies, and some populations turn fully white in winter. Weasels eat small mammals and were sometimes branded vermin for taking poultry or rabbits, yet they also eat large numbers of rodents, which helps farmers. Their thin bodies let them follow prey right into burrows.

Did you know?

• The least weasel is the smallest carnivoran species in the world.
• The weasel range covers Europe, much of Asia, North America and pockets of North Africa.
• Ferrets and stoats both belong to the weasel genus Mustela.