00:01Can you tell the difference between a peach marten and a pine marten on night vision footage?
00:07And a poll cat?
00:09In this video I'll show you how you can distinguish these different marten species from each other.
00:17On the first look, the peach marten and the European pine marten look very similar
00:22and are easily mistaken for each other.
00:24But if we take a closer look, there's a couple of traits we can use to tell them apart.
00:31If I freeze these clips and flip one of them, we can compare the two.
00:36The first traits I look for are the ears and the darkness of the undercoat.
00:42The pine marten looks darker on night footage because it has a greyish undercoat,
00:47whereas the beech marten has a whitish undercoat, which makes it appear lighter on night footage.
00:54The ears of the pine marten are bigger and closer together.
00:59Beech marten have smaller ears, which are wider spaced.
01:03This makes their head look wider or more triangle shaped compared to the pine marten.
01:09Pine marten have a black nose.
01:11Beech marten have a pink nose.
01:14This is often not clear on night footage, but I think you can kinda see it there.
01:23Another important trait to tell them apart are the legs.
01:27Beech marten have shorter limbs than pine marten.
01:30You can see this clearly on the hind legs.
01:33The pine marten stands taller.
01:42Another marten species is the Eurasian polecat.
01:46It's smaller and darker, has a cute white snout and ears.
01:51No large spot on the throat.
01:53Walks with an arched back and has a smaller and stiffer tail.
01:56If I now added some beech marten in this shot, you can really see how different they look.
02:05Now we will discuss a few clips to see if we can recognize the species.
02:11Small ears, far apart.
02:13Triangle shaped head, light undercoat.
02:16It's a beech marten.
02:19We also see a large throat patch spreading to the front legs.
02:23This shape of the throat patch is typical for beech marten.
02:26But there's actually a lot of variation between individuals.
02:30So this isn't always a reliable characteristic.
02:35The throat patch of the pine marten tends to be smaller and more spotted.
02:40But, like I said, this is not always the case.
02:46The coat looks quite dark.
02:49Long legs.
02:53And we see a white edge on the ears, which are looking fairly big and close together.
02:59So this one is a pine marten.
03:03Dark coat, smaller stick-like tail, typically walking with an arched back, a white snout and ears.
03:11This is a ball cat.
03:16Ears are small and wide spaced.
03:18This one is clearly a beech marten.
03:22This one made me doubt a little.
03:24It's holding a rat in his mouth here, which has an effect on the ear stand.
03:29At the beginning of the clip, the ears look bigger and closer together.
03:33So I would say it's a pine marten.
03:36But when he comes closer, they look smaller and further apart from each other.
03:42Like a beech marten.
03:44However, he has a clear spot on his front leg.
03:48And if I compare it with the pine marten on the tree from before, I think it's the same marten.
03:55So that would make it a pie marten.
03:57What do you think?
04:01I hope this will help you out next time you see a marten on night footage.
04:05To figure out which one it is.
04:09There's much more I can show you.
04:11Please subscribe if you like to see more.
04:13It would make my day.
04:14Toodles!
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