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| North American mink mustella vison |
The two best-known species are the European mink, sometimes known as the marsh-otter, and the North American mink (mustella vison).
The former inhabits Finland, Poland and the greater part of Russia, though not found east of the Ural Mountains.Formerly it extended westward into central Germany, but it is now very rare, if not extinct, in that country. The latter is found in places which suit its habits throughout the whole of North America.
Another form, mustella sibiricus, from eastern Asia, appears to connect the minks with the polecats.
The name may have originated in the Swedish maenk applied to the European animal.
Captain John Smith, in his History of Virginia (1626), at p. 27 speaks of “Martins, Powlecats, Weesels and Minkes,” showing that the animal must at that timehave been distinguished by a vernacular appellation from its congeners. By later authors, as Lawson (1709) and Pennant (1784), it is often written “Minx.”
The following description, chiefly of the American species but almost equally applicable to that of Europe, is from Dr Elliott Coues’s Fur-bearing Animals of North America, 1877. In size it much resembles the English polecat—the length ofthe head and body being usually from 15 to 18 inches, that of the tail to the end of the hair about 9 inches. The female is considerably smaller than the male. The tail is bushy, but tapering at the end. The ears are small, low, rounded, and scarcely project beyond the adjacent fur. The pelage consists of a dense, soft, matted under-fur, mixed with long, stiff, lustrous hairs on all parts of the body and tail. The gloss is greatest on the upper parts; on the tail the bristly hairs predominate. Northern specimens have the finest and most glistening pelage; in those from southern regions there is less difference between the under- and over- fur, and the whole pelage is coarser and harsher. In colour different specimens present a considerable range of variation, but the animal is ordinarily of a rich dark brown.
Mink fur has been highly prized for its use in clothing, with hunting giving way to large-scale mink farming. It has also been a focus of much animal rights protesting.