Atlas der Säugetiere Nordrhein-Westfalens

Baummarder

336 entries

Pine marten

Rote Liste NRW: 2 Stark gefährdet

  entry

Martes martes

The Pine Marten is a medium-sized marten perfectly adapted to the life in trees. It is an excellent climber and inhabits tree cavities and old raptor nests. Its very diverse food is sought in trees (young birds, squirrels) as well as on the ground. With observations in the wild but also with hunting records one has to expect a high rate of confusion with the similar and significantly more common Beech Marten, which in part occurs in the same habitat. Typical Pine Martens are coloured in warm brown-tones and display a relatively small bright yellow or cream-coloured throat patch, whereas Beech Martens are cold-brown to grey in colour with a large white throat patch. But there is a broad variation of characters in both species and several overlaps. Structurally the Pine Marten has longer legs, a longer snout and larger ears.

In NRW the Pine Marten is well represented in the forested low mountain ranges and widely distributed. For a long time it was considered to be an exclusive species of these large contiguous forest areas, which appeared only rarely or locally in the park-like landscape of the Münsterland. However, studies in recent years have shown that smaller woodland patches and hedgerows can also serve as habitat for the Pine Marten. Here the species can occur together with the Beech Marten.

Author

Jan Ole Kriegs

Citation

Kriegs JO (2025): Baummarder (Martes_martes).In: AG Säugetierkunde NRW — Online-Atlas of the mammals of North Rhine-Westphalia. Downloaded from saeugeratlas-nrw.lwl.org on 2025/04/01