Mustela itatsi

The Japanese weasel is native to southern and central Japan, but now lives all over it. Locally it is known as an itachi, spelled as イタチ or 鼬. As in English it may be used as a suffix nowadays, thus making its new full Japanese name ニホンイタチ or more rarely spelled, 日本鼬. Some scientists feel that it is a fully fledged species, while others consider it a subspecies of the Mustela sibirica. Evolutionarily they diverged from each other in the early pleistocene 1.7 million years ago. Nowadays the Japanese weasel has been introduced to some Russian islands, while the kolonok has been introduced to western Japan. Thus they now live together.https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Japanese_weasel&oldid=1063841135
In some countryside beliefs, the weasel changes into a marten after living for a century.
In other legends they are associated with the kamaitachi, a Japanese yokai that is sometimes portrayed as a type of weasel and other times not. Whether portrayed as one or not, contains the Japanese word for weasel remains in its name.
Category:Mustela
Category:Weasels
Category:Japanese Mammals
Category:Japanese culture