Marten

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Marten

For the Wiltshire village see Marten, Wiltshire. For the town in Bulgaria, see Marten, Bulgaria
Marten, Bulgaria

Marten is a town in the Northern part of Bulgaria. It is located in Ruse Province....
.

The Martens constitute the genus

Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
Martes within the subfamily Mustelinae

Mustelinae

Mustelinae is a polyphyletic subfamily of Family Mustelidae and includes wolverines, weasels, ferrets, martens, and similar carnivorous mammals of Order Carnivora....
, in family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is a taxonomic rank. Exact details of formal nomenclature depend on the Nomenclature Codes which applies....
Mustelidae

Mustelidae

Mustelidae or Mustelids , commonly referred to as the weasel family, is a family of carnivora mammals. The Mustelidae is a diverse family and the largest in the order Carnivora, at least partly because it has in the past been a catch-all category for many early or poorly differentiated taxa....
. They are slender, agile, animals, adapted to living in taiga

Taiga

Taiga is a biome characterized by coniferous forests. Covering most of inland Alaska, Canada, Sweden, Finland, inland Norway and Russia , as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States , northern Kazakhstan and Japan , the taiga is the world's largest terrestrial biome....
s, and are found in coniferous and northern deciduous forest

Forest

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Encyclopedia

The Martens constitute the genus

Genus

Mustelinae

Mustelinae is a polyphyletic subfamily of Family Mustelidae and includes wolverines, weasels, ferrets, martens, and similar carnivorous mammals of Order Carnivora....
, in family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is a taxonomic rank. Exact details of formal nomenclature depend on the Nomenclature Codes which applies....
Mustelidae

Mustelidae

Taiga

Forest

File:Stara planina suma.jpgA forest is an area with a high density of trees. There are many definitions of a forest, based on various criteria....
s across the northern hemisphere. They have bushy tails, and large paws with partially retractile claws. The fur varies from yellowish to dark brown, depending on the species, and, in many cases, is valued by fur trappers. Martens are carnivorous animals related to wolverine

Wolverine

The wolverine is the largest land-dwelling species of the Mustelidae or weasel family in the genus Gulo . It is also called the Glutton or Carcajou....
s, mink

Mink

There are two living species of mink: the American Mink and the European Mink. The extinct Sea Mink is related to the American Mink, but is much larger....
s and weasel

Weasel

Weasels are mammals in the genus Mustela of the Mustelidae family .Originally, the name "weasel" was applied to one species of the genus, the European form of the Least Weasel ....
s. Their diet consists of squirrels, mice, rabbits, birds, fish, insects, and eggs, and they will also eat fruit and nuts when these are readily available.

They are solitary animals, meeting only to breed in late spring or early summer. Litters of up to five blind and near-naked kits are born in early Spring. They are weaned after around two months, and leave the mother to fend for themselves at about three to four months of age.

Recent DNA research has shown that the genus Martes is in fact polyphyletic, placing Martes pennanti and Martes americana outside the genus and allying it with Eira
Tayra

The tayra , also known as the Tolomuco or Perico ligero in Central America, is an omnivore animal from the weasel family Mustelidae....
and Gulo, to form a new New World

New World

The New World is one of the names used for the non-Eurasian/non-African parts of the Earth, specifically the Americas and Australasia. When the term originated in the late 15th century, the Americas were new to the Europeans, who previously thought of the world as consisting only of Europe, Asia, and Africa ....
clade

Clade

A clade is a term used in modern alpha taxonomy, the scientific classification of living and fossil organisms, to describe a monophyletic group, defined as a group consisting of a single common ancestor and all its descendants.The term "monophyletic group" is used in this article in the conventional sense of "an a...
. The genus first evolved up to seven million years ago, during the Pliocene

Pliocene

The Pliocene epoch is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 1.806 million years before present.The Pliocene is the second epoch of the Neogene period in the Cenozoic era....
.

Etymology

The word "marten" is not of original Germanic

Germanic languages

The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European languages language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Pre-Roman Iron Age....
origin. The Modern English

Modern English

Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern English, or more specifically, are referred to as using...
"marten" comes from the Middle English

Middle English

Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman conquest of England of 1066 and about 1470, when the #Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William...
"martryn", in turn borrowed from the Anglo-French

Anglo-Norman language

The Anglo-Norman language is a term traditionally used to refer to the variety of French used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles following the Norman conquest in 1066....
"martrine" and Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance languages dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300....
"martre". (Compare to French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
"martes".)

Species

American Marten
American Marten

The American marten is a North American member of the Mustelidae family, sometimes referred to as the Pine Marten. The term Pine Marten is also used to refer to a separate Martes species from Europe....
Martes americana

Newfoundland Pine Marten
Newfoundland Pine Marten

The Newfoundland Pine Marten is a genetically distinct subspecies of the American Marten found only on the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada; it is sometimes referred to as the American Marten ....
Martes americana atrata

Yellow-throated Marten Martes flavigula
Beech Marten
Beech Marten

The Beech Marten , also known as the Stone Marten, is the most common species of marten in Central Europe. Beech martens are long, slender, short-legged predators with long, bushy tails....
Martes foina
Nilgiri Marten Martes gwatkinsii
Pine Marten
Pine Marten

The European Pine Marten , or Pineten, is an animal of the weasel family, native to Northern Europe. It is about the size of a domestic cat....
Martes martes
Bog Marten Martes palus
Japanese Marten Martes melampus
Fisher
Fisher (animal)

The fisher is a North American marten, a medium-sized mustelidae. The fisher is agile in trees and has a slender body that allows it to pursue prey into hollow trees or burrows in the ground....
Martes pennanti
Sable
Sable

The sable is a small carnivorous mammal, closely related to the martens. It inhabits taiga environments primarily in Russia from the Ural Mountains throughout Siberia, in northern Mongolia and China and on Hokkaido in Japan....
Martes zibellina

In Popular Culture

In Cornelia Funke's
Cornelia Funke

Cornelia Caroline Funke was born December 10, 1958, in Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia. She is a multiple award-winning Germans author of children's fiction....
Inkworld trilogy
Inkworld trilogy

Inkworld is a triology fantasy novels written by Germany author Cornelia Funke, comprising Inkheart , Inkspell , and Inkdeath . The books chronicle the adventures of teenager Meggie Folchart whose life changes dramatically when she realizes that she and her father, a bookbinder named Mortimer Folchart, have the unusual ability...
, the character Dustfinger
Dustfinger

Dustfinger , also known as the fire-dancer, is a character in Cornelia Funke's Inkworld trilogy. Dustfinger was played by Paul Bettany in the Inkheart of Inkheart....
has two martens, Gwin and later, a younger, friendlier one named Jink.
In The Amber Spyglass
The Amber Spyglass

The Amber Spyglass is the third and final novel in the His Dark Materials series, written by England author Philip Pullman, and published in 2000....
, the third part of His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials

His Dark Materials is a trilogy of fantasy literature by Philip Pullman comprising Northern Lights , The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass ....
by Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman Order of the British Empire is an England novelist. He is the best-selling author of His Dark Materials , and a number of other books....
, Lyra Belacqua's
Lyra Belacqua

Lyra Belacqua is the heroine of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Lyra is a young girl who inhabits a universe parallel to our own....
dæmon
Dæmon (His Dark Materials)

A d?mon is a manifestation of a person's soul in the Philip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials. In those universes with physical d?mons, they exist external to the human in the form of animals representative of the person's personality, although children's d?mons may change form at whim....
, Pantalaimon finally settles on the form of a marten.
In the Redwall
Redwall

Redwall is a series of fantasy novels by Brian Jacques. It is the title of the first book of the series, published in 1986, the name of the Abbey featured in the book, and the name of an Redwall based on three of the characters , which first aired in 1999....
series, by Brian Jacques
Brian Jacques

James Brian Jacques is an British literature, best known for his Redwall series of novels, as well as the Tribes of Redwall Badgers and Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series....
martens appear as antagonists in three books in the series, Mossflower
Mossflower

Mossflower is a fantasy novel by Brian Jacques, published in 1988. It is the second book in the Redwall series....
, The Pearls of Lutra
The Pearls of Lutra

The Pearls of Lutra is a fantasy novel by Brian Jacques, published in 1996. It is the ninth book in the Redwall series. The American edition of the novel was published simply as Pearls of Lutra....
, and High Rhulain
High Rhulain

High Rhulain is a children's fantasy novel by Brian Jacques, published in 2005. It is the eighteenth book in the Redwall series....
.
In the anime
Anime

is animation in Japan and considered to be "Japanese animation" in the rest of the world. Anime dates from about 1917.Anime, in addition to manga , is extremely popular in Japan and well known throughout the world....
Spice and Wolf
Spice and Wolf

is a Japanese light novel series written by Isuna Hasekura, with illustrations by Ju Ayakura. The first novel was released on February 10, 2006, and as of September 10, 2008, nine volumes have been published by ASCII Media Works under their Dengeki Bunko label....
, the main characters sell Marten furs in the first town they travel to.