Habitat/ where they live: Inland Alaska and the northern United States, Canada, Greenland and northern Europe, and Asia Classification: Mammal, carnivore At full adult size, total body length from head to rump is 170 mm to 330 mm. Males are generally twice as large as females, with males weighing from 67 to 116 grams and females from 25 to 80 grams. The tail length is about 35% of the total body length, ranging from 42mm to 120mm. Ermine have the typical weasel form: long body, short legs, long neck supporting a triangular head, slightly protruding round ears, bright black eyes (not very good eyesight, but it is better at night), and long whiskers that are extremely sensitive to touch. Their short, moderately fine fur is white in the winter and the tip of the tail is black. In the summer, the fur on the back is chocolate brown while the fur on the belly extending to the upper lip is yellowish white.
Ermines are adapted to their environment. One such adaptation is their sinuous, flexible body. This allows them to reach the burrows of their prey, which include rodents, birds and insects. Following on from this, they usually eat voles, mice, shrews, and other small rodents, but will often feast on birds, insects, and eggs. When it attacks prey, it bites the back of the neck and severs the spinal cord. An ermine will even attack animals larger than itself. Although the ermine might nip and bite anywhere on the body of its prey, it attacks with one specific target in mind. To kill rodents and hares, ermines pounce and sink their teeth into the back of the prey's neck. If an ermine hits its target, it can cripple an animal's breathing by crushing the connection between the prey's brain and body. To help them survive in the cold, they have thick, soft coats of for all of the seasons. This is doubly important because ermines have neither the body fat ...