Weasel in white steals the show
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- March 3, 2025
- 736
Last Saturday I had the pleasure of talking about wildlife all day long at a wonderful event in Kidron called Small Farm Solutions. I’d been invited to speak about some of Ohio’s mammals with a focus on entertaining the children, but I knew from experience that once I opened my treasure chest of “skins and skulls,” it would bring out the kid in nearly everyone.
The “Wildlife Trunk” that accompanies me on such travels is on perpetual loan from Ohio Division of Wildlife and is an amazing assembly of tanned hides and crisp white skulls of critters that met their untimely demise most typically on the roadways of the state. Saving and preserving the specimens is a boon to the teaching of animal ecology as — short of displaying actual live animals — nothing grabs the attention and imagination quite like real artifacts.
The advantages of this “static” display, aside from the ease with which an entire region’s worth of species can be represented in one sitting, is folks can get as close as they like and really get to know the differences and similarities between the animals. From the large and heavy skull of a black bear to the tiny hide of long-tailed weasel, one of the Midwest’s most fearless predators, everything is out on the table and each specimen has a story.
The slim white hide of the long-tailed weasel generated the most interest on this particular day. That’s likely because very few people have actually encountered a living weasel, despite the fact three distinct species roam the state. I’ve only experienced three “in the flesh” encounters over the course of a lifetime, although I have followed the distinctive tracks of weasels through the snow on many occasions. With hind paws dropping directly into the tracks made by the front paws, the trail makes for an endless length of double-dots across the landscape.
Easily the most amazing aspect of my “winter” specimen was the brilliant white coat punctuated by a jet black length of tail. Each of Ohio’s weasels has a genetic predisposition to molt from a “mousy brown” summer coat to the white camouflage of a winter hunter. Not all of their number make this shift, however, and one might imagine that generally milder winters and diminishing periods of snow cover may favor those animals that hold onto their brown hide throughout the year — at least in the southern portions of the animal’s range.
Making a living by raiding nests or patiently staking out the den entrances of other small animals like voles, mice, chipmunks and the occasional rabbit, the weasel goes at its victims headfirst and is unlikely to back down from a fight, no matter what foe it might find in the dark underground. Pound for pound the tiny weasel just might be the toughest critter around.
If you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com. You also can follow along on Instagram @railtrailnaturalist.