Weasel Mating Dance

Weasel Mating Dance

Weaselographer Mary Fortuna recently captured extremely rare footage of a solitary weasel engaged in the rarely seen Slippery Weasel Mating Dance. This elaborate ritual is most often performed under the full moon in May, by both male and female lone weasels1 longing for a mate. It is thought that secretions from a musk gland beneath the tail are deposited on the ground during the execution of the dance, in hopes of attracting a weasel of the opposite sex. Slippery Weasels are notoriously difficult to live with, and generally copulate briefly if ferociously before biting one another behind the ears and going on about their solitary business. In the photos above, note the subtle cock of the head and the open position of the forearms. The weasel maintains this posture while moving slowly – almost imperceptibly – around in the circle. Time elapsed in the above photos, in which the subject advanced from Position A to Position C, is approximately 7 hours 13 minutes.

1. Lone Weasel – see Oswald, Lee Harvey