Mustela putorius Linnaeus, 1758 . Syst. Nat., 10th ed., 1:46.

TYPE LOCALITY: "inter Europae rupes et lapidum acervos", restricted by Thomas (1911a) to " Scania, S. Sweden."

DISTRIBUTION: Europe (excluding Ireland and most of Scandinavia), east to the Ural Mtns.

SYNONYMS: ambigua Mearns, 1897; angustifrons Howell, 1902; bicolor Gray, 1837; gracilis Merriam, 1890; interrupta Rafinesque, 1820; larvatus Hodgson, 1849; leucoparia Merriam, 1890; lucasona Merriam, 1890; microdon Howell, 1906; mupurita Müller, 1776; olimpica Elliot, 1899; phenax Merriam, 1890; putida Cuvier, 1798; quaterlinearis Winans, 1859; ringens Merriams, 1890; saxatalis Merriam, 1890; striata Shaw, 1800; tenuis Howell, 1902; texensis Merriam, 1890; tibetanus Horsfield, 1851; zorilla Schreber, 1776.

COMMENTS: Reviewed by Heptner (in Heptner and Naumov, 1967). Probable ancestor of domestic ferret, furo (Rempe, 1970; Volobuev, 1971). Youngman (1982) placed putorius in the subgenus Putorius . Pocock (19366) and Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1966) considered eversmannii and putorius conspecific; however, Ognev (1931), Stroganov (1962), and Heptner (in Heptner and Naumov, 1967), recognized them as distinct species.