Stoat?

[Grimalkin]

We went to a botanical garden yesterday and crossed paths with a creature I can't identify.  It was quite small with an elongated body (around 15cm long I think).  My boyfriend thinks it's a stoat, but I thought they were fairly large.  Any idea what it could have been?

[woofgang]

here's the wilipedia article on weasels with quite a nice pic....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel

How do you tell the difference between a stoat and a weasel?

easy, weasels are weasily identifiable and stoats are stoatally different.....boom boom

(sorry, I have had an awful morning and needed cheering up)

[Grimalkin]

Thank you, woofgang, for the link and the pun...

Hadn't actually realised they were so similar. The one we saw was very minature compared to the ones whose portraits appear on the web.

[spudqueen]

There are also polecats and mink. The mink aren't native to this country but some kind meaning animal activisits (! )let them into the wild from mink farms and unfortunately they are having an undesired impact on the local animal population.

[ladymariner]

Her's a little rhyme my farmer father told me when I was a kid to help remember the difference - "a stoat can be easily told from a weasel by the simple fact that his tail is black. and his figure is slightly the bigger." Hope that helps!!

[Cetti]

If it was around 15cm long Grimalkin then it would more than likely have been a Weasel as they are quite tiny measuring 20 -25cms. Stoats on the other hand are fairly long beasties at 35 -40cms. It's quite difficult to distinguish between the two when they're running at speed but the Stoat has a longer tail with a prominent black tip.