1300, martrin, "skin or fur of the marten," from Old French martrine "marten fur," noun use of fem. Old English mearþ, Old Norse mörðr, and Old High German and Yiddish מאַרדאַר mardar.Īgile, short-legged, bushy-tailed, medium-sized carnivorous mammal in the weasel family, largely nocturnal and found in forests across the colder parts of the northern hemisphere, c. The Modern English "marten" comes from the Middle English 'Mearth' or martryn in turn borrowed from the Anglo-French martrine and Old French martre ( Latin martes), itself from a Germanic source cf. Several fossil martens have been described, including:Īnother described fossil species, Martes nobilis from the Holocene, is now considered synonymous with the American marten. Russia, Eastern Kazakhstan, China, North Korea and Hokkaidō, Japan Spain and Portugal in the west, through Central and Southern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, extending as far east as the Altai and Tien Shan mountains and northwest ChinaĪfghanistan and Pakistan, in the Himalayas of India, Nepal and Bhutan, the Korean Peninsula, southern China, Taiwan and eastern Russia. Southeast Alaska to central California, east to northern New MexicoĮurope and SW Asia, from Ireland in the west, eastward to the Urals and into Anatolia, Transcaucasia, Mesopotamia and northern Iran. The genus first evolved up to seven million years ago during the Miocene epoch.Īrctic Alaska east to Newfoundland, south to New York Results of DNA research indicate that the genus Martes is paraphyletic, with some studies placing Martes americana outside the genus and allying it with Eira and Gulo, to form a new New World clade. Martens are slender, agile animals, adapted to living in the taiga, which inhabit coniferous and northern deciduous forests across the Northern Hemisphere. The fur varies from yellowish to dark brown, depending on the species it is valued by animal trappers for the fur trade. They have bushy tails and large paws with partially retractile claws. A marten is a weasel-like mammal in the genus Martes within the subfamily Guloninae, in the family Mustelidae.
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