Poleverine

The poleverine is a medium mustelid carnivore native to the most northern reaches of the world, inhabiting high north taigas and conifer forests. Like other mustelids, they have long but stout bodies, short legs, and short faces. Poleverines are well known for their digging, aided by massive claws on their claws, highly mobile wrists, and thick arm and leg muscles. These traits also help them to climb trees, ice, and stone. Poleverines are poor runners, though capable of short bursts of speed to chase down slow prey. Most are more well known for slow persistence hunting, and ambushing prey once exhausted or cornered.

The poleverine mainly inhabits taigas and conifer forests of the high northern regions of the world, which are oftentimes broken up by glaciers and tundras. Although capable of surviving on the open tundra, their skittish natures when out in the open sees that the vast majority stick to areas with high amounts of underbrush and treecover. Poleverines are also only a medium carnivore in these highly competitive environments, and prey to a wide array of animals- Needlecoat Wolf, Short-Tailed Cats, wolves, bears, cougars, and many large birds of prey will readily hunt them, as well as their offspring being vulnerable to foxes, coyotes, lynx, and on occasion even seabirds. In coastal regions, they may also become prey to Arctic Bear Seals, much like anything else.   Poleverines themselves are burrowers, digging large dens underground or within deeply packed snow. Their powerful claws allow them to easily deal with tightly packed and frozen soil, and likely they will eat any roots or worms they come across. Poleverine dens tend to be sprawling tunnels with 2-3 central chambers and numerous exists, allowing the animals easy access to these shelters and escape from predators. The vast majority of dens are dug from abandoned badger, wolf, or fox holes, which are oftentimes expanded. Their tendency to dig has been noted by forestry workers as a key component in maintaining the health of conifer forests, as well as distributing nutrients through the soil.

As opportunistic hunters, poleverines will hunt and eat just about anything that they manage to catch, but by far specialize in burrowing animals such as rabbit, hare, pika, and other rodents. Birds and their eggs are also frequently on the menu, as their strong legs allow them a high degree of mobility while climbing, and it is not uncommon for the species to lie in wait in popular roosting areas for birds to land at night. Due to being mostly nocturnal, poleverines are rarely seen hunting, and it's believed they have a much wider array of favored prey than is currently known. As they are also rather competent swimmers, it's believed fish may make up a large portion of their diets.   Poleverines are not obligate carnivores and will also eat insects, mushrooms, lichens, mosses, and berries when they are available. These items make up only a small portion of their diets however, and oftentimes rise in proportion during the short spring and summer months due to availability. During the long winters, meat makes up the vast majority. Scavenging kills from other larger predators also seems to take up a large portion of their time as evidence by camera traps at wolf and short-tail cat kill caches- poleverines on finding a cache would frequently return, ripping off portions of prey to carry back to their dens.

The species is notoriously difficult to study due to their isolated habitats, skittish behavior, and being primarily nocturnal. When their dens are disturbed, poleverines are very likely to abandon them, even during the pup season, and dig out new dwellings. This has made research into their behavior extremely difficult as well as present issues of ethical study, as once a den is disturbed, females will refuse to let their pups enter, leaving them vulnerable against birds of prey.   Lone poleverines have proven to be much less skittish, likely due to primarily being younger individuals. They have been known to be incredibly curious and likely to be distracted by filming equipment or researchers, which also presents issues of studying their behavior.

Little is known about the social structure of poleverines, mainly due to their highly isolated habitats. It's believed that the species lives in loose mixed sex groups that may be fluid, but are primarily made up of closely related individuals. Multiple breeding females have been noted to be in most poleverine dens, and due to their polygamous mating structure, they very likely rear offspring collectively.   Poleverine young generally stay with their group for much of their lives, though adult offspring are much more likely to leave the group and join another if the dens have become too crowded. Of poleverines captured for scientific study, the vast majority of those not seen with a group have been female, suggesting that there may be a social structure bias against breeding age females to prevent overpopulation. More study, especially into their behavior, is crucially needed.