Neogale

Neogale
Long-tailed weasel (N. frenata)
American mink (N. vison)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Mustelidae
Subfamily:	Mustelinae
Genus:	Neogale Gray, 1865
Type species
Mustela frenata[1]
Species
N. africana N. felipei N. frenata N. vison †N. macrodon
Synonyms
Mustela (in part) Neovison Baryshnikov & Abramov, 1997 Grammogale Cabreragale

Neogale is a genus of

Members of this genus were formerly classified into the genera Mustela and Neovison, but many studies had previously recovered several American species of Mustela, as well as both species within Neovison, to comprise a monophyletic clade distinct from all other members of Mustelinae.^[2][3] A 2021 study found this clade to have diverged from Mustela during the Late Miocene, between 11.8 - 13.4 million years ago, with all members within the clade being more closely related to one another than to any of the other species in Mustela, and gave it the name Neogale, originally coined by John Edward Gray.^[1] The American Society of Mammalogists later accepted this change.^[4]

Species

There are 5 recent species in the genus, 4 extant and 1 extinct:^[4]

Extant species

Image	Scientific name	Common name	Distribution
	Neogale africana (Desmarest, 1800)	Amazon weasel	Amazon Basin of South America
	Neogale felipei (Izor and de la Torre, 1978)	Colombian weasel	Andes of Colombia and Ecuador
	Neogale frenata (Lichtenstein, 1831)	Long-tailed weasel	Continental North America south of southern Canada; Andes and northern Amazon Basin in South America
	Neogale vison (Schreber, 1777)	American mink	North America (United States and Canada); introduced to Europe, Japan, Chile and Argentina

Extinct species

Image	Scientific name	Common name	Distribution
	Neogale macrodon (Prentiss, 1903)	Sea mink	Maritime Provinces in Canada, New England in the United States ; now extinct

References