Its coat is bright yellow-golden, and its head and back are distinctly darker, blending together black, white, golden-yellow and brown.

It is an omnivore, whose sources of food range from fruit and nectar to invertebrates, rodents, lagomorphs, reptiles and birds, and to small primates and ungulates.

The soles of the feet are covered with coarse, flexible hairs, though the digital and foot pads are naked and the paws are weakly furred.

[5] The anal glands sport two unusual protuberances, which secrete a strong smelling liquid for defensive purposes.

[6] The yellow-throated marten occurs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the Himalayas of India, Nepal and Bhutan, continental southern China and Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula and eastern Russia.

It preys on rats, mice, hares, snakes, lizards, eggs and ground nesting birds such as pheasants and francolins.

[12] In the Himalayas and Myanmar, it is reported to frequently kill muntjac fawns,[11] while in Ussuriland the base of its diet consists of musk deer, particularly in winter.

[13] The yellow-throated marten has few predators, but occasionally may fall foul of larger carnivores; remains of sporadic individuals have turned up in the scat or stomachs of Siberian tigers (Panthera tigris) and Asian black bears (Ursus thibetanus).

[1] The first written description of the yellow-throated marten in the Western World is given by Thomas Pennant in his History of Quadrupeds (1781), in which he named it "White-cheeked Weasel".

For a long period after the Elenchus' publication, the existence of the yellow-throated marten was considered doubtful by many zoologists, until a skin was presented to the Museum of the East India Company in 1824 by Thomas Hardwicke.