American marten

Spruce marten (Martes americana)

The pine marten (Martes americana) is a common North American carnivore species in the genus of the Real marten. He sees the European Pine Marten very similar and is sometimes regarded as the subspecies.

Features

As with most of the body of the pine marten martens is elongated and slender, the limbs are short. The fur is mostly brown in color, the head is gray, the legs and the tail dark brown or black. He has a yellow throat patch, as the pine marten, but is much smaller and more delicate than this. They reach a body length from 32 to 45 centimeters, the bushy tail is 14 to 23 inches long and the weight is 0.5 to 1.3 kg for males and 0.3 to 0.9 kg for females.

Distribution and habitat

Spruce marten are located in North America, their range covers large parts of Alaska and Canada, with the exception of the far north. In the U.S. they are common in the Rocky Mountain area in the region of the Great Lakes and New England. Their habitat consists mainly of coniferous forests.

Way of life

Spruce marten are nocturnal in the first place. During the day, they retreat into hollow logs, rock crevices or abandoned burrows of other animals to go out at night in search of food. They keep both on the trees and on the ground, also they can be very good swim and dive. Hold not hibernate, but migrate during the cold season in southern or low-lying regions.

Like most Marder they are territorial. The average territory size is 8.1 square kilometers in males and 2.3 square miles in females, but can vary significantly depending on the habitat and food supply. They live mostly solitary, sometimes you may, however, observe a male and female together.

Food

Spruce marten are omnivorous, although small mammals such as rodents make up the main component of the diet. In addition, they also take birds, insects, carrion and fruit to himself.

Reproduction

Mating occurs in the summer from June to August, due to a dormancy itself nests the fertilized egg but only in February. The actual gestation period lasts about a month, and in March or April brings the female one to five (mean 2.6 ) pups. This open with 40 days, the eyes are weaned at six weeks, and are fully grown at 3.5 months. Sexual maturity occurs in the second year. The life expectancy in the wild up to twelve years, in captivity up to 17

Endangering

Because he was chased because of the deemed valuable pine marten fur from trappers, the spruce pine martens in many parts of its range has become rare. In New England and in Michigan, he was at times completely eradicated, but has since been naturalized successfully again. Regionally, it is protected today, but is global because of its incidence, especially in the sparsely populated northern Canada not as a threat.

In Grand Teton National Park