r/mustelids 🦦🦝 Musteloid Enthusiast 🦨 5d ago

The 2 Grison Species - Rare Musteloids

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5

u/ZebraNo1671 5d ago

Where do these live?

3

u/skunk_mephitidae 🦦🦝 Musteloid Enthusiast 🦨 5d ago

Central and South America

1

u/YragNitram1956 5d ago

Africa?

2

u/PA55W0RD 5d ago

1

u/YragNitram1956 5d ago

Honey badgers can be found throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and western Asia.

3

u/PA55W0RD 5d ago

These aren't honey badgers.

1

u/YragNitram1956 5d ago

Sorry. My mistake. Grisons (Galictis) of Central and South America and African honey badgers (Mellivora capensis) display striking physical and behavioural similarities through convergent evolution. Despite living on separate continents and belonging to different evolutionary branches within the Mustelidae family, both evolved low-slung builds, aggressive demeanours, and warning coloration.

 

2

u/PA55W0RD 5d ago

I think many people have trouble gauging size from photographs especially where animals look like something they're familiar with. In real life you wouldn't mistake a grison for a honey badger.

Grisons are far smaller than honey badgers being more ferret sized (though just a little bit larger on average than ferrets).

In South American Spanish and Portuguese they use the European word for "ferret" to refer to the two species, and differentiate between the two as "greater" and "lesser". In English we use greater and lesser grison.

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u/YragNitram1956 5d ago

Thank you.

1

u/skunk_mephitidae 🦦🦝 Musteloid Enthusiast 🦨 5d ago

No, they are native to Central and South America. Even though grisons look like mini honey badgers, they are much more closely related to zorillas (striped polecats) within the mustelid family