Skull

This was inspired by the story related today by Cabbagetree Cottage. She saw a stoat ([iMustela erminea[/i]) in her garden.
Stoats were introduced into NZ to try to control introduced rabbits; it's like the old lady who swallowed a fly...According to the Wikipedia page which Cabbagetree links to, even back in the 1880s people were warning that this was a very bad idea!
Inevitably, the stoats started attacking the flightless and/or ground-nesting NZ birds, which had evolved with no mammalian predators.
Stoats are lovely animals, lithe and sleekit, going pure white in winter (with the black tip to the tail) and it is astonishing to see them attack rabbits, 3 or 4 times their size. However, that only really holds in their natural range, so here, for my Kiwi friends, is a dead stoat...


Cranium length around 5cm (2 in)