joy_wangmq 的最愛

A friend from Yunnan picked up this corpse and gave it to me. I made a specimen of its head. It is different from other species of this genus because of its shallow stripes on the outside of the body, natural connection between the back coat color and the neck, and no connection between the lines under the eyes and the back.

Track 2
When I stumbled over this track, I was puzzled; the print in the snow did not look like anything I knew. Since the track abruptly "began" and "ended", I concluded this to be an arboreal animal; the size of the imprints, the distance of the imprints lead to the conclusion : Martes flavigula (rare, but I suspected it to visit the school forest).
Photos in order from left to right :
Photo 1 imprint, length measured
Photo 2 : imprint, width measured
Photo 3 : distance between imprints measured
Photo 4 : Here the animal landed on the ground after jumping down a pole
Photo 5 : tracks the animal left when climbing up a snag; behind Brian Dean
Photo 6 : detail of the imprint, from the side
Photo 7 : detail, from the top
Photo 8 : at some sections of the track, the marten seems to "have jumped around the corner" over a distance longer than the usual jump (as measured on photo 3). In the front of the photo a print in the ground; Brian Dean stands next to the previous print on the ground.
The prints shown on photos one and 2 are parallel front foot prints merged with parallel back feet prints; otherwise the dimensions can not be explained.

Track 1
Photos from left to right :
Photo 1 :Close-up of print of front foot, on a low dead branch
Photo 2 : detail, comparison with footprint pattern from field guide
Photo 3 : track where the animal crossed the road in jumps; prints of front and left feet next to each other
Photo 4 : footprints on a dead low branch (Close-up one of them)
Photo 5 : end of the track at the foot of a tree
Comment : we had fresh snowfall in the night from Dec 30 to Dec 31. Track found on a morning hike