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Distribution of the stone marten Martes foina (Carnivora, Mustelidae) in the European part of Russia

2006; Volume: 5; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.15298/rusjtheriol.05.1.05

1682-3559

Alexei V. Abramov, С.В. Крускоп, A.A. Lissovsky,

Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies

The stone marten, or beech marten, Martes foina (Erxleben, 1777) is widely distributed in Palaearctic: from Spain to Central Europe and south part of Eastern Europe, also on islands of Corfu, Crete and Rhodes; through Caucasus Mountains, mountainous regions of Iran and Middle Asia to the Altai Mountains, Mongolia, Himalayas and adjacent parts of China.This is a common mustelid in continental Europe, which distribution area spread from Mediterranean to Baltic Sea and from Portugal to Volga River.However, its northern border in Eastern Europe still stays very poorly known (Fig. 1).Beech marten recorded in Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia), in western and southern region of Belarus, and Ukraine.In Russia the species distribution is represented by three fragments not connected with each other.One of them is located in Siberia covering southern part of the Altai Mountains; second one covers the Northern Caucasus and the third fragment is situated in the central part of European Russia.The distribution of the stone marten in the European Russia is highly controversial and in a great extant is based on the anecdotal evidences from trappers and foresters.Stone marten was reported for the Moscow Province by several authors (Ognev, 1931;Novikov, 1956); however most of these records look doubtful.Ognev (1931) reported about trapping of three specimens of M. foina in Shchurovo near Kolomna (55°03¢N, 38°49¢E).This record together with some personal communications from trappers gave him ability to include stone marten into the fauna of Moscow Province.However, Heptner (Heptner et al., 1967) reviewing all the available records of M. foina from the European Russia, came to the conclusion that all findings in the Moscow Province are invalid because none of them were confirmed by any collection specimens.Meantime, in 1936 the stone marten was introduced into eastern part of Ryazan Province (Lavrov, 1946;Nazarov, 1957;Grakov, 2001).Fifty-four specimens were released on the right bank of Oka River not far from mouth of Moksha River in the Laptevsky Forestry of Oksko-Kasimovsky Hunting Area (ca.54°57¢N, 41°2 2¢E).In 19461952 stone martens were trapped near Kasimov, Spassk, and Solodtcha (Nazarov, 1957), about 70 km from present border of Moscow Province.Heptner (Heptner et al., 1967) supposed that small popula-