The sea mink, (Neovison macrodon), is an extinct North American member of the family Mustelidae. It is the only mustelid, and one of only two terrestrial mammal species in the order Carnivora, to become extinct in historic times (along with the Falkland Islands wolf). The body of the sea mink was significantly longer than that of the closely related American mink (N. vison), and also bulkier, leading to a pelt that was almost twice the size of the other species. The longest specimen recorded was said to be 82.6 centimetres (32.5 in). The fur of the sea mink was said to be coarser and redder than the American mink's, and produced a distinctive odor.
Read more about Sea Mink: Habitat, Extinction, Subspecies
Famous quotes containing the words sea and/or mink:
“The structure was designed by an old sea captain who believed that the world would end in a flood. He built a home in the traditional shape of the Ark, inverted, with the roof forming the hull of the proposed vessel. The builder expected that the deluge would cause the house to topple and then reverse itself, floating away on its roof until it should land on some new Ararat.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“We need the tonic of wildness,—to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)