In skulls of weasels, the individual variation in size is more than it
is in relative proportions. Hensel (_op. cit._) has stressed that
weasels, like other carnivores, produced "dwarfed" individuals more
than do herbivorous mammals. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this
view, but can say that individual variation is not greater than in some
other fissiped carnivores. Impressions to the contrary probably result
largely from failure to recognize age-variation. When skulls of a large
series from any one locality are arranged first by sex, and under each
sex according to probable age on the basis of extension anteriorly of
the sagittal crest and of degree of postorbital constriction,
individual variation is seen to be less than a cursory examination,
even of only one sex, would suggest.
Study of a large series of one age of one sex of one species from one
locality shows that some parts, of the skull for example, vary more
than other parts. In illustration, among 22 male topotypes of _Mustela
frenata washingtoni_ the least interorbital breadth varied 25 per cent
(9.0 mm. to 12 mm.) whereas the length of the tooth-rows varied only
13.3 per cent (15.6 mm. to 18.0 mm.). In color the individual variation
definitely is more in areas of intergradation between subspecies than
in other areas. Details of one such instance of intergradation are
given in the account of _Mustela frenata spadix_.
Statements to the effect that there is much individual variation in the
color of weasels, were made mostly fifty years or so ago by writers who
had but few specimens from widely separated localities. Where marked
climatic differences exist between localities only a few miles apart,
marked differences occur in coloration of the weasels from the
different localities. Much of what formerly was mistaken for individual
variation now proves to be geographic variation. Individual variation
actually is of slight amount in comparison with that in mammals
generally. Differences in size and relative proportions of parts
usually are correlated with geographic differences in color. The color
does fade slightly in the period between molts. Also as a result of the
seasonal color change, in autumn along the upper margin of the Austral
Life-zone, some individuals become white whereas others become white on
only the underparts, the upper parts changing only to lighter brown.
Probably it would be correct to say that this variation was a
combination of seasonal and individual variation rather than either one
alone.
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