The red fox, the most widely distributed carnivore species on the planet
No other member of the order Carnivora ranges as widely as the red fox. It spans the whole Northern Hemisphere, has moved into suburbs and cities, and after being introduced to Australia now ranks among the world's 100 worst invasive species, preying on native rodents and marsupials.
Vulpes vulpes, the largest of the true foxes, arose in Eurasia at least 400,000 years ago, though early fossils from Baranya County in Hungary, dated to 3.4 to 1.8 million years ago, show a smaller-bodied ancestor. Remains of the modern form turn up beside the refuse of early human settlements, hinting that people hunted it for meat and pelts, or that foxes scavenged their leftovers. It reached North America in two waves, the later one around 130,000 years ago, and American populations have been genetically separate for so long that they may deserve species status.
Despite the name, individuals can be pale or black, and 45 subspecies are recognised, split between large northern forms and small grey desert foxes of Asia and North Africa. Its closest relative, Rüppell's fox, sits inside the red fox lineage in mitochondrial DNA, a tangle called paraphyly that is best explained by genes crossing between the two species.
Red foxes live in pairs or small family groups, and older offspring help raise the new kits. Small rodents are the staple, but they also take rabbits, squirrels, game birds, reptiles, invertebrates and young hoofed animals, along with fruit and vegetables. They kill smaller predators, including other foxes, yet fall prey to golden eagles, eagle-owls, goshawks and even mink and stoats.
Males are tods or dogs, females vixens and young cubs or kits. As the only fox native to Western Europe, it is simply the fox in British English, a word traced through Proto-Germanic to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning thick-haired or tail; the Welsh name llwynog means bushy. Hunted for centuries as a pest and for fur, it remains a mainstay of the fur trade, and in Russia domestication has produced the tame silver fox. Conservationists rate it least concern.
Source: Red fox
