Range Description

The marbled polecat has a distribution extending from south-east Europe, through Asia Minor, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, to northern China and Mongolia. In Europe, it is found in Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkish Thrace, and southern parts of Ukraine (has in fact disappeared from most of the Ukraine, only present in the east) and the Russian Federation and the northern Caucasus (the steppe areas, not the mountains). It is also known to be widespread throughout the Middle East, having been recorded from just across the Sinai eastern border in Gaza (Harrison 1968), in Israel/ Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and northern Iraq and northern Saudi Arabia (Ellerman and Morrison-Scott 1951; Harrison 1968; Nader 1991). Saleh and Basuony (1998) report the first records of this species from Egypt, as it was recorded from two localities on the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula (southeast of Bir El Abd and just north of Gabal El Maghara). It occurs from sea level to 2,000 m. It is found up to 3,000 m in the Tien Shan Mountains.