Mustela Linnaeus, 1758 . Syst. Nat., 10th ed., 1:45.

TYPE SPECIES: [Mwste/«] Putorius Linnaeus, 1758 .

SYNONYMS: Grammogale Cabrera, 1940; Lutreola Wagner, 1841; Putorius Cuvier, 1817; Vison Gray, 1843 .

COMMENTS: Revised by Hall (1951) and Youngman (1982). Youngman (1982) recognized 5 subgenera: Putorius ( putorius, eversmannii, nigripes); Lutreola ( lutreola, sibirica, nudipes, lutreolina, and perhaps strigidorsa); Mustela ( erminea, nivalis, altaica, frenata); Vison ( vison); and Grammogaie ( africana, felipei). Some have chosen to elevate these groupings to generic status; because of the lack of any comprehensive phylogenetic approach to this problem, they are provisionally recognized here as valid subgenera.