Mustela nigripes
Black-footed ferret/Scientific names

Mammal
Ferret/Class

Black-footed ferret/Scientific names

TAXONOMY: The currently accepted scientific name for the black-footed ferret is Mustela nigripes Audubon and Bachman [2,32,77].

Mustelids
Black-footed ferret/Family
Black-footed ferrets are a member of the weasel family and about the same size as minks. Adults are 18 to 24 inches long and weigh less than three pounds. Their coats are yellow-beige with distinctive black markings on their face, feet, legs, and tail that help them blend in with their habitat.

(Black-footed ferrets live in empty prairie dog burrows.) Thought to have been introduced by shipborne rats in San Francisco more than a century ago, Hughes says the invasive bacteria have been marching eastward ever since — straight across the black-footed ferret’s native territory.

Mustela putorius furo
Ferret/Scientific names

Animal
Ferret/Kingdom

Black-Footed Ferrets are solitary animals with the exceptions of breeding season and caring for their young.

He bemoaned the fact of the negative impact on the local economy when logging and other outdoors jobs were lost because of the need to protect a dwindling population of his fictional “Miller’s weasels,” which seemed to be based on the real-life experience of the endangered black-footed ferret.

The ferrets are key indicators of healthy ecosystems as they help manage prairie dog populations. The ferrets themselves are a food source for larger predators like owls, coyote and badgers. They are important members of the ecosystem both as predators and prey on the prairie.

It is a slender, wiry, animal with black feet, a black face mask, and a black-tipped tail. Its short, sleek fur is a beige-buff color, lighter on the belly and nearly white on the forehead, muzzle, and throat. Black-footed ferrets have short legs with large front paws, and claws developed for digging.

Disease also poses a significant threat to black-footed ferrets. Sylvatic plague, spread by fleas, is deadly to both ferrets and prairie dogs, and has drastically reduced prairie dog populations throughout North America, nearly exterminating the food source for black-footed ferrets.

Black-footed ferrets are North America’s only native ferret species. They once ranged across the western plains but were thought to be extinct until a small population was discovered in 1981. Thanks to breeding and reintroduction programs, including the work of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute,…

Black-footed ferret. In contrast, differences between the black-footed ferret and the steppe polecat of Asia are slight, to the point where the two species were once thought to be conspecific. The only noticeable differences between the black-footed ferret and the steppe polecat are the former’s much shorter and coarser fur, larger ears,…

Thanks to breeding and reintroduction programs, including the work of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, black-footed ferrets have made an incredible recovery! Black-footed ferrets’ color and markings blend well with grassland soils and plants, making them well adapted to their prairie environment.