![]() The large cream-coloured throat patch or 'bib' distinguishes the pine marten from the beech marten, which has a white throat patch. The body and tail are covered in dark brown fur, which is short and coarse in summer, but thicker and more silky in winter. In captivity ages up to 18 years have been recorded. In the wild, the pine marten can live up to 11 years, although the average lifespan is 3-4 years. ![]() An individual will weigh between 1.3 and 1.7 kg., with the female being slightly smaller than the male. long and a bushy tail which can be 25 cm. It is about the size of a cat, with a body up to 53 cm. The pine marten is a medium-sized member of the mustelid family of carnivorous mammals, whose other members include the stoat, weasel and badger. There is a captive breeding programme underway in Kent, and suggestions have been made for the pine marten to be reintroduced to parts of southern England. The pine marten prefers well-wooded areas with plenty of cover, but it lives in more open habitats as well. Since then, its range in Scotland has increased due to the expansion of commercial forestry plantations, and more recently, the regeneration of native woodlands. Its range reached a minimum at the beginning of the 20th century, as a result of habitat loss through deforestation and conversion of the land to agriculture, hunting for its fur and persecution for predation on game birds and chickens. Until about 1800, the pine marten was widespread throughout Britain, but today it is confined mainly to remote, forested areas in the north and west of Scotland, with a few small isolated populations surviving in north Wales and northern England. There are eight marten species in the world altogether, and these include the beech marten, which occurs in Europe and Asia, and the American marten and the fisher, both of which are found throughout northern parts of North America. It is also found on many of the Mediterranean islands, including Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands of Majorca and Minorca. The pine marten has a Palearctic distribution: its geographic range extends from western Siberia across Russia and Europe to Scotland and Ireland, and from the northern limit of the boreal or coniferous forest in the north to the Mediterranean and the Caucasus region in the south.
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