True foxes fill genus Vulpes across every continent but Antarctica
Foxes are small-to-medium omnivorous canids with flattened skulls, triangular ears, pointed snouts, and bushy tails. Twelve species form the monophyletic true-fox genus Vulpes; about twenty-five other living or extinct canids wear the name more loosely. They inhabit every continent except Antarctica, led by the red fox’s roughly forty-seven subspecies.
Size spans a wide range: male red foxes, the biggest, weigh 4.1 to 8.7 kilograms, while the fennec tops out at about 1.6. Foxes walk on their toes and, unlike most canids, have partly retractable claws and black whiskers. Desert kinds such as fennec and kit foxes carry huge ears and short fur to shed heat, whereas Arctic foxes have tiny ears. Coats thicken for winter and are moulted once a year around April, starting at the feet.
Like other canids they have 42 teeth, though the bat-eared fox adds six extra molars, and their carnassial pairs shear flesh. Most eat about a kilogram a day of insects, small reptiles, birds, eggs and plants, burying any surplus. The gray fox is one of just two canines that regularly climb trees, the other being the raccoon dog.
Wild foxes usually live one to three years, occasionally ten, often in small family groups, though Arctic foxes can be loners. A vixen is in heat for only one to six days a year, carries her young for 52 or 53 days and typically raises four or five kits. Kits whine from birth, which also prompts the male to help, switch to play yelps at about 19 days, and by one month can give an explosive threat call that becomes the adult’s combative bark.
The English word goes back to Proto-Germanic fuhsaz, and vixen is one of very few surviving English words with a feminine ending. Many species suffer habitat loss and hunting for fur, and the island fox of California’s Channel Islands crashed after a 1999–2000 distemper outbreak and predation by non-native golden eagles, which cut numbers by up to 95 percent.
Source: Fox
