What is this? Found it dead thankfully!!!

[sourland]

Could also be a least weasel with that white belly. Weasels are little but bad news! Your very lucky it didn't get anything before it kicked the bucket.

May very well be, but the tail looks somewhat long.

Every weasel that I have ever trapped (28 in one year) has had a black tip to it's tail.

 

[chickenlisa]

oh yes, we're in NJ, near the southern part of the Highlands, also near the Delaware River, some farmland, woods...we got it all here. Not your typical part of NJ at all. We're more like Pa where we are...

 

[Jeanna Marie]

Google pole cat.

 

[bugglesmommy]

" Polecat is a word that can designate several different animals, all in the Carnivora order and most in the weasel family."

 

[Jeanna Marie]

...

" Polecat is a word that can designate several different animals, all in the Carnivora order and most in the weasel family."[/quote

Yes but if you keep reading you will learn that polecats are actually in the weaselfamily. In the us we use the term losely.

 

[Ribbit]

http://www.whatisdifferencebetween....polecat-weasel-stoat-ferret-and-mongoose.html

 

[Jeanna Marie]

http://www.whatisdifferencebetween....polecat-weasel-stoat-ferret-and-mongoose.html

Great comparison link! I can't see the underbelly from the pic or the face but my guess is polecat.

 

[chickenlisa]

http://www.animalspot.net/long-tailed-weasel.html

too small for a stoat....just the size of a female weasel from this website...I'm getting the parts to make a weasel trap so the 1st time I see any harm to a chicken or a hole in their pen (that I reinforced part of a little while ago) I"ll be READY! (and I'll whisper to my barn cats to go get 'em!)

 

[Ribbit]

this is a polecat:

notice the bandit like mask covering it's eyes, and how the under coat is lighter.
they're usually darker than the domestic ferrets seen with these markings.
(and also bigger)

this is a ferret:

pretty sure it's more common for ferrets to have lighter noses too.

this is a stoat:
​

The most identifiable feature of a stoat is that it has a black tipped tail which weasels do not have.

this is a weasel:

note the much more orangey coat
also a heck of a lot smaller but vicious little so and sos

 

[Ribbit]

Though it could be that American weasels & stoats are different to British ones so maybe the differences between the two are not so obvious and great, idk
at least we know it's of that family haha