Still waiting for a bit more and reading when i get a bit of spare
time, but I found out when genus Mustela first appeared in very recent
refs (last year). It's actually quite recent geologically. In fact the
earliest members of Mustela are used as one of the designating fossil
groupings to know if a person is prospecting in the Miocene- Pliocene
border, about 5.9 to 4.7 MYBP (Million Years before Present). It's NOT
the only one of the mustelid genera used to mark those same years. Also
used are the earliest Lutra fossils (otter branch), and fossils of two
extinct ones: Trogonictis and Sminthosinis. I looked to see if I could
find on-line images of those two for you but could not. The radiation
the Mustela genus had was rapid with a lot of diversity, just as the
earlier radiation of mustelids was rapid, but then again it happened
when there were a number of niches to exploit and that is not at all
an unusual pattern in paleontology. (That means that a lot of forms
appeared in a short time because there were openings they could exploit
so the survival of different forms happened at a higher rate than would
happen with more competition.) BTW, skunks and stink badgers look from
the molecular data to have branched off before the mustelids did from a
common relative with the procyonids or perhaps even from the procyonids
(Current members: raccoons, kinkajous, coatis, cacomistle, lesser
panda, etc.)

Now, I know most people just skipped over that but i also know some
other soft rock geeks said, "Woooooooooooooooooow!" (Soft rock refers
to carbon based...)

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html

[Posted in FML 6303]