Sometimes they have small white spots on their belly. The fur is soft and thick with oily guard hairs that waterproof the coat. The tail is fully furred and slightly bushy. The eyes appear black and are beady in appearance. They have fair eyesight and must rely on their sense of smell to locate prey. The feet have five toes which are slightly webbed, making mink excellent swimmers. They use all four feet when swimming and are able to dive as deep as 16 feet. They are capable of swimming underwater distances of 50 feet.
On land, they usually walk or take low bounds covering a distance of between inches with each bound. They are capable of running miles per hour. They will often rear up on their hind legs to get a better view of their surroundings, and will sometimes climb trees to avoid predators. They will spray a foul smelling liquid when frightened and may squeal, snarl, or hiss. They can make a purring sound when happy and will greet with a bark. Mating takes place between January and March.
Females may breed their first year. The average life span is one year but they may live as long as 4 years. Litters of are born blind, naked and helpless. Eyes open around days. Abandoned burrows dug by muskrat are a favorite place to rest and raise their young.
They will also use cavities in brush and rock piles, logjams, and the exposed roots of trees. A den can have several entrances, and includes a nest chamber about 1 foot in diameter. The female usually lines this chamber with grass, leaves, fur or feathers. Mother begins to wean at 5 weeks by bringing home food. By 8 weeks, the weaning process is over and the young mink begin traveling with their mother on hunting trips.
Young mink are playful and begin to play fight. They remain with their mother until the end of summer. As fall approaches, the young mink will leave to establish their own territory. The larger males disperse first and the females may not disperse until the following spring. The young mink may establish territory as far away as ten miles.
By the age of ten months they are able to mate. Females reach their full growth by the following fall but males continue to grow into their second year. Mink prefer a habitat beside streams and lakes. They are chiefly nocturnal and very secretive. We have high hopes for her. The challenge, Tabellario said, will be reintroducing her to other sloth bears and teaching her to socialize with her own species — the sooner the better. Margulis has published studies on mice showing that pups that were raised in the same cages as their mothers were more successful mothers than mice raised alone.
And in the primates she worked with, some hand-raised gorillas had to be taught to nurse and care for a baby.
Bernier disagrees. There the cheetahs have an advantage, Crosier said, because adoption is an option. Support Provided By: Learn more. Thursday, Nov The Latest. World Agents for Change.
Health Long-Term Care. For Teachers. NewsHour Shop. About Feedback Funders Support Jobs. As reasonable as these decisions sound, there's still something profoundly upsetting about the deed—so much so that even biologists used to regard it as a pathological behavior. In some cases, depending on the circumstances, they still do. Male lions are one of the most cited examples of this type of infanticide. Typically, a pride of lions includes one or two adult males who father the cubs.
If other males successfully oust these fathers, the newcomers almost immediately kill any young cubs, particularly those the female lions are nursing—despite every effort on the mothers' part to stop the slaughter.
Then the females quickly become fertile again and mate with the very males who killed their cubs. From the newcomers' standpoint, "there's no sense in spending energy or resources raising the previous males' cubs," Stanford says, since the new males are most likely unrelated. In the game of life, the prize goes to the individuals who have the most reproductive success and pass on the most genes—a task best accomplished by raising your own offspring or helping to raise those of your relatives.
Assisting unrelated individuals adds nothing to your reproductive scorecard. This type of infanticide is found in almost every primate species, including chimpanzees, gorillas—and, as much as we would like to deny it, humans. Male bonobos are one of the few great apes who have not been seen killing infants.
This is probably because female bonobos are the dominant members of their societies, making it risky for the males to attack any youngsters. Also, bonobos happily mate with everyone in their community. Thus, males aren't readily able to identify which kids are theirs. A common counter-reproductive strategy of females in many animal societies is to confuse males about which if any kids they've fathered.
It doesn't always work. Male bottlenose dolphins, for instance, remember which females they've mated with. When a male dolphin encounters a strange female with a young calf, he'll do his best to separate the pair and will then severely injure or kill the youngster by bashing it and heaving it through the air.
If the infant dies, the mother will become fertile in a few months—giving the killer male a chance to father her next calf. If the infant lives, the mother won't be receptive for another three to four years—a long time from a male's standpoint. In the game of life, it doesn't pay to wait for her to rear her kid, especially if you know it's not yours.
Better to get rid of it. Zoos generally try to prevent killings by males by carefully managing the reproductive events of the animals in their care. But sometimes animals behave in unpredictable ways. That's what happened in when, as visitors looked on, an adult male chimpanzee bashed and killed his sister Gracie's three-month-old baby at the Los Angeles Zoo.
The zookeepers had kept Gracie away from the rest of the troop for three months after she gave birth, giving her time to bond peacefully with her infant. All seemed to be going well, and the keepers decided to slowly reintroduce the pair to their community. Juveniles that have recently left the family group often use several dens until they establish their own home range, which are usually smaller than those of older mink. While a mink may be active all day long, it is most active from dusk to dawn.
It is active year-round although it may remain in its den for a day or two during severe winter weather. A mink usually lives alone except during the breeding season and when young mink live with the family group until they are old enough to claim their own territories.
The mink marks its territory and advertises its presence by depositing droppings and leaving its scent in prominent locations such as on flat rocks and logs.
Mink are semi-aquatic and can dive to a depth of 16 feet using their partially webbed feet for propulsion. They are also good climbers. Startled mink may squeal, hiss or snarl, and release a scent similar to, but far weaker than, skunk, that can be smelled up to 10 feet away. The scent dissipates much faster than skunk, and is far less penetrative.
This scent is also used as a marker to advertise their presence to other mink. Note: In the US, mink cannot be taken from the wild without a permit from the state authorities.
Adult mink are bold, ferocious and virtually untameable, but if they are taken as kits they are playful and can become attached to the person who cares for them. While dogs and cats have been selectively bred for pet-quality traits over thousands of years, domesticated mink are livestock that have been bred for life on a farm.
While some farmers have selectively bred mink for tameness and can handle them without gloves, they still retain their aggressive traits. Mink have very sharp teeth and claws and can inflict nasty injuries on their handlers. They are also carnivorous and so need a high protein diet.
Given the chance, mink will eat your pet guinea pigs, rabbits and goldfish. If ferret-like pets are what interest you, consider a ferret if ownership is legal in your state. Ferrets have been raised for pet quality for thousands of years. That said, they are still not for everyone. Dogs and cats are infinitely better choices for the average person. But always be cautious with any animal.
A thousand Americans a day are treated in emergency rooms for dog bites, mostly children bitten in the face. Estimates of the average lifespan of a wild mink vary, from less than a year to less than three years, but these figures reflect the large number that fall prey to disease, starvation and predators while they are young and poorly equipped to fend for themselves. The vast majority of wild mink do not live through their first six months.
Those that reach adulthood and find abundant sources of food may live to the age of four, and a small percentage of these successfully reproduce.
Dental evidence suggests that occasionally they may live as long as seven years. Out of these, the finest are retained for breeding stock for the following year while the rest of the mink will be harvested for pelts for use in cold weather clothing, fine oil and other products at about 7 to 8 months. Mating takes place once a year, in February and March, with females remaining in heat for about three weeks.
As the mating season approaches, males leave their territories and travel long distances in search of females. One male may mate with several females and each female may be mated by several males. How does this promiscuous mating behavior favor the strongest males?
Experiments on mink farms indicate that when a female is mated by several males, it is the last mating which produces most of the kits. This suggests that in the wild, the males which father the most kits are the stronger ones which are still mating at the end of the season.
Further supporting this notion is the fact that when the mating season comes to an end, the male mink stays with the last female mink it mated with. Seven to 30 days may elapse between fertilization and implantation of the egg, with gestation proper lasting days. The average total gestation period is about 51 days, but young can be born as early as 40 days. Litters range in size from two to 10, but five or six is typical.
Newborn kits weigh about 6 gms and wear a short coat of fine, silvery-white hair. When they are about 2 weeks old, this coat is replaced by a dull, fluffy, reddish-brown coat. Kits are also born deaf and blind, gaining their hearing and sight when they are five weeks old.
At eight to 10 weeks old and weighing about gms, kits are weaned and begin to accompany the mother on hunting trips. Even though they are capable of fending for themselves at two months, kits stay with their mother until autumn when they leave to establish their own territories. At five months old, kits are as large as adults, but sexual maturity is not reached until 10 months.
Despite the fact that mink have a fairly short life span in the wild, they are extremely prolific and capable of completely replacing their populations over a three-year span. Mink have a thick fatty layer just below the skin. This fatty layer is recovered after the pelt is removed from the carcass and is then rendered down to make mink oil.
Fine, triple-refined cosmetic grade mink oil is prized for use on the face and body. Palmitoleic acid is used by the body to moisturize and lubricate the skin. In individuals with dry skin, an external source of palmitoleic acid can be beneficial. Mink oil is rapidly absorbed through the pores not the epidermis but does not clog pores as it lubricates. It enables the skin to re-moisturize itself by trapping moisture from the lower cell layers.
The supreme softness, smoothness and moisture-retaining properties imparted to skin are believed to be due to the special ratio of glycerides contained in mink oil.
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