Sea mink

The sea mink lived on the eastern coast of North America around the Gulf of Maine on the New England seaboard. It was most closely related to the American mink, with debate about whether it was a subspecies or a species of its own. It became extinct in the 19th or early 20th century and is believed to have lived in the Maritime Provinces.

About Sea mink in brief

The sea mink lived on the eastern coast of North America around the Gulf of Maine on the New England seaboard. It was most closely related to the American mink, with debate about whether it was a subspecies or a species of its own. The main justification for a separate species designation is the size difference between the two minks, but other distinctions have been made, such as its redder fur. The only known remains are bone fragments unearthed in Native American shell middens. Its actual size is speculative, based largely on tooth remains. Fur traders who hunted it gave it various names, including water marten, red otter, and fisher cat. Possibly the first description of this species was made by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in the late 1500s. It got its name from being mistakenly identified as the fisher wood, which was also known by fur traders as the minkwood. The Abenaki Indians referred to it as the mouse, which means “wet thing” or “mouse-like thing” It was always found near the coast and was often referred to as theAmerican mink and subsequently referred to theSea mink as the “minkwood” It became extinct in the 19th or early 20th century and is believed to have lived in the Maritime Provinces, though its range may have stretched further south during the last glacial period. Its closest relative is the common mink, which also inhabits the New Hampshire area.

It may have exhibited behavior similar to theAmericanmink, in that it probably maintained home ranges, was polygynandrous, and had a similar diet, though more seaward-oriented. The largest of the minks was more desirable to fur traders and became extinct in theLate 19th and early 20ths century. It is possible that it was always called the Americanmink because of its body shape and its gait, which were apparently similar to that of a greyhound, which it was named after. A 2007 study compared the dental makeup of the sea minks to the Americans and concluded that they were distinct enough to be considered two separate species. The species name macrodon translates to \”large teeth\”. According to Richard Manville, a naturalist who maintains that the sea. mink is not a separate. species, its closest relatives are the commonmink and the sea minks. The taxonomy of theminks was revised in 2000, resulting in the formation of a new genus, Neovison, which includes only the seamink. and the AmericanMink. It has been described as Lutreola macrodon by Daniel Webster Prentiss, a medical doctor and ornithologist, in 1903 after it became extinct. A study in 1911 by Frederic Brewster Loomis, an American paleontologist, concluded that the differences between the American. minky and the Sea mink were too minute to justify the latter’s classification as a separatespecies.

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