2 June 2026

Stoat or Weasel

That age-old question. So who will confidently give me an answer based on this image? Two of us observing the animal thought we saw a dark-tipped tail, but did we?

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Ian Green
Ian is the co-founder of Greentours and since graduating in Ecology, has led over one two hundred and fifty holidays in various fields of natural history, and has organised many, many more. My interests and knowledge extend to most areas of the natural world. I am equally happy among the spring bulbs and alpine flowers of the Middle-eastern mountains, and the biodiverse forests, savannahs and mountains of Asia, Africa and the Neotropics and the great variety of mammals, birds and butterflies therein, but most of all I love nothing better than wondering around with spotlight all night looking for mammals!
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4 Comments

  • 5 June 2026
    John Flothmann

    I would say a Stoat, they tend to like rocky crevices more, in addition, the front legs and feet look to have some extra white on their front and back sides, that normally typical for a stoat leaving its “ermin” alter ego state from when its coat is white in winter to spring. To be certain i would need some kind of size scale, a weasel is generally about 20cm long, an adult stoat more around the 30-35cm mark. The ears are generally more prominant on a stoat and the head more triangular than on a weasel (impossible to see from this picture) and the white pattern leads more closely up to the face on a stoat. The long black tail tip is ofcourse the easiest way to know its a stoat

    • 6 June 2026
      Ian Green

      we did see the tail and it as black-tipped. Enough you’d think. But the reason for my caution is that this Stoat was photographed in a country that it has not, as far as I can tell, been recorded in, Turkey

  • 5 June 2026
    Marcos Mallo

    It is a stoat for me. In addition to what John said, the weasel has a throat patch the same color as its coat, but separated from it by a white stripe. The specimen in the picture doesn´t have this patch.

  • 14 June 2026
    Daan Drukker

    This is a Weasel, but I understand the confusion. People have long thought that mustelids with this appearance in Turkey are Stoats, but already in 1988, Kasparek argued that these belong to the very large subspecies “minuta”: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271751838_On_the_occurrence_of_the_Weasel_Mustela_nivalis_in_Turkey

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