Link: http://www.wildlifeonline.me.uk/red_fox.

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Evolution and Early Distribution: Dogs and cats are Carnivorans, that is,
theyre members of the taxonomic order Carnivora (note this is di"erent to
simply being a carnivore, or meat-eater, which is not a taxonomic
grouping), which is one of 29 orders within the class Mammalia.The
evolution of carnivorans appears to have been a gradual process that
happened in both North America and Eurasia, making it di$cult to infer
when it all started.Nonetheless, taxonomists (those who study how
species are related to each other) currently think that the carnivorans
evolved from animals called miacids, which were small tree-living
mammals that looked similar to modern-day civets.At some point -- by
current thinking, around 42 million years ago (mya), during the mid-
Eocene -- it appears that the carnivorans split into the two groups, or
suborders, that we recognise as cat-like (Feliformia) and dog-like
(Caniformia).If, at this point, youre wondering where mammals like
mustelids, seals, bears, etc. t in: theyre all dog-like carnivorans.

The evolutionary history of the dog family is still not completely resolved
(and may never be, as new fossil nds and molecular techniques o"er
new insights), but the following is a generally accepted hypothesis.
Readers interested in a more detailed appraisal of dog evolution are
directed to Xiaoming Wang and Richard Tedfords authoritative account in
their 2008 book Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History and
I recommend the reader visits WikiPedia and The Searching Wolf.Briey,
the creature that taxonomists currently think gave rise to modern-day
dogs was a medium-sized (about the size of a coyote) grassland predator
of North America called Prohesperocyon wilsoni that appeared during the
late Eocene, some 36 mya.The caniforms subsequently diverged into
three lineages (which we call subfamilies): the Hesperocyoninae (western
dogs); the Borophaginae (bone-crushing dogs); and the only one still
around, the Caninae, which includes the dogs, wolves, foxes, etc. and is
thought to stem from the now extinct small fox-like Leptocyon, which
lived in North America.During the late Miocene, around 10 mya,
something important happened: the third, and for our purposes most
important, canid radiation began.This radiation was probably in response
to a vacant niche opening up as the borophagines started to die-out, and
not only marked the birth of all the dog species we know today but also
heralded the appearance of three modern-day genera in the south-
western USA: Canis (dogs, wolves, dingoes, etc.); Urocyon (Gray foxes);
and Vulpes (true foxes).In essence, it was around 10 mya that the fox
lineage split from the wolf-dog lineage.A couple of million years later the
dogs started arriving in Eurasia, and the Pliocene (4-5 mya) saw the dogs
spread into Africa and South America.Around six mya, the rst wolf-like
dog arrived in western Europe.

According to Wang and Tedford, the rst true foxes appeared in North
America late in the Miocene (around 9 mya) and were represented by a
small Californian species known as Vulpes kernensis, and a larger species
(V. stenognathus) that was found throughout the continent.Foxes spread
out from North America, presumably via the Bering land bridge, and
colonised Europe.The oldest Old World fox specimen so far identied is
V. ri"autae, which was found in the Central African country of Chad and
dates to the late Miocene (some 7 mya).Recent work by Louis de Bonis
and colleagues at the Universit de Poitiers in France has suggested that
the foxes and other canids rst spread throughout Africa, before invading
Europe via a trans-Mediterranean route towards the end of the Miocene.
There is then something of a hiatus in the vulpine fossil record until the
early Pliocene (about 4 mya), with foxes from China and Turkey among
the earliest Eurasian specimens.The origins of our modern-day Red fox
(V. vulpes) is equivocal, although most authors agree that it is descended
from the Eurasian red fox Vulpes alopecoides, which lived in southern
Europe at the end of the Pliocene, around 2.6 mya this species was rst
discovered in deposits from Italy in the late 1800s, but remains were
subsequently found in France, Spain and Greece.

In their 1982 comparison of Red and Arctic (V. lagopus) fox ecology, Pall
Hersteinsson and David Macdonald note that both species are
descendents of V. alopecoides and that the two species diverged during
the Pleistocene.Indeed, the earliest fossil evidence for V. vulpes comes
from the Old World and dates to the early Pleistocene (between 1.8 and 1
mya) of Hungary and, in her 2008 study of Red fox dentition, Polish
Academy of Sciences mammalogist Elwira Szuma suggested that the
current V. vulpes line evolved either in Asia Minor or North Africa around
this time.As fox populations rose in Eurasia, those in North America
appear to have dwindled.Previously it was believed that the rst modern
Red foxes (i.e. V. vulpes) to appear on the continent migrated (again,
presumably across the Bering land bridge) from Europe at the end of the
Pleistocene (around 1 mya) and, from here, Red and Arctic foxes
colonised much of North America.Recent genetic work by Keith Aubry
and his colleagues at the Pacic Northwest Research Station in
Washington, however, has revealed new information on the spread of the
Red fox in North America.Aubrys data suggest that this species rst
reached North America during the Illinoian glaciation that lasted from
roughly 300,000 to 130,000 years ago; during the next 30,000 years (the
Sangamon interglacial period) the foxes spread south from Alaska, across
what is now the contiguous USA.The large ice sheet that covered most of
Canada and the northern fringes of the USA from around 100,000 to
10,000 years ago (during the Wisconsin glaciation) kept the Red foxes in
Alaska (the population of which was added to by a second wave of
colonisation from Eurasia) separate from those in the southern USA.So,
the result was two isolated populations (or clades): one in Alaska
(Holarctic clade) and one in the south (Nearctic clade).When the ice
melted the Holarctic clade spread south and east, while the Nearctic
clade spread north, the two meeting in central Canada.Aubrys data
reveal more than just the distribution of foxes in pre-history, it also
elucidates the relatedness of the animals currently inhabiting North
America (see: Taxonomy).

Whenever and wherever this species rst appeared, fossil evidence
suggests that the modern Red fox has been in North Africa for the last
700,000 years and Europe for at least the last 400,000 years.In Britain,
remains of the Red fox have been found in Wolstonian Glacial sediments
from Warwickshire, suggesting that they were around between 330,000
and 135,000 years ago.Following the retreat of ice from the last ice age
(the Late Glacial) some 15,000 years ago, many of the larger mammal
species began to re-appear and extend their range northwards.
According to Derek Yaldens fascinating book, The History of British
Mammals, post-glacial remains of the Red fox have been found at several
sites around Britain and suggest that this species re-appeared
naturally (i.e. without any obvious assistance from humans) around
10,000 years ago.Indeed, other fossil data imply that the ice forced foxes
into the warmer southern regions of Europe (e.g. Iberia, Italy, southern
France, etc.) for only a (geologically) brief period, after which they quickly
returned to central Europe and Britain; at the time, the UK was connected
to the European continent.The ooding of the Doggerland bridge
around 6,500 years ago isolated Britains foxes from those in Europe,
putting an end to any natural mixing of the populations. (Back to Menu)

Taxonomy: Many texts on fox natural history cannot help but draw
comparisons between the fox and the cat and, if you spend any time
watching them, youre certainly struck by how similarly they behave: both
have the same delicate, tripping gait; both stalk and pounce in much the
same way; both sit and sleep with tails curled around their bodies; both
twitch tail tips to allow young to practice hunting; both will use a paw to
scoop unwary sh out of a garden pond.Anatomically, however, foxes
have the large ears, the long pointed muzzle, the 42 teeth and the non-
retractable claws (ve on forefeet and four on hind) that we typically
associate with dogs, although they do share the vertically-slit pupils
commonly associated with cats (larger canids, such as wolves and
domestic dogs, have round pupils).Despite the resemblance, foxes are
dogs not cats; the feline similarities are a result of convergent evolution,
where two species look similar because they occupy a similar ecological
niche and/or habitat. (Sharks and dolphins provide a good example of
convergent evolution. They look very similar but arent related.They have
evolved the same basic body shape because it works very well in aquatic
habitats).

Foxes have been a well-known part of our countryside for many centuries
(see: Interaction with Humans), but Swedish scientist and father of
modern-day taxonomy, Carl von Linne (often known simply by his pre-
ennoblement surname, Linnaeus), was the rst to formally describe and
classify the Red fox in the 10th edition of his Systema Natur, published
in 1758.Based on a specimen from Uppsala, the university town of
south-east Sweden in which he studied, Linnaeus gave the animal the
Latin name Canis vulpes (meaning literally dog fox), recognising its place
within the dog family.The principal idea behind classifying animals is to
illustrate their relatedness, so closely related species are grouped
together (in the same genus, for example), while more distantly related
ones sit further away.As was the case with much early taxonomy, as
more species were described and interrelationships became better
understood the initial groupings proposed by Linnaeus for the dogs soon
became too restrictive to adequately reect their diversity; this led to the
creation of new genera within the dog family (Canidae).One such genus is
the one we now use for most of the modern-day foxes: Vulpes.

Until very recently, the creation of the genus Vulpes was credited to
German zoologist Just Leopold Frisch.In 1775, Frisch published his
thesis on the systematic table of four-footed animals in which he
curiously described the common fox as both Vulpes vulgaris (vulgaris
meaning common in Latin) and Vulpes crucifer (confusingly, both names
referred to the same animal).Following Frischs lead, Vulpes was used by
many subsequent authors when referring to the Red fox.Indeed, since
about 1900 there has been almost universal reference to Vulpes vulpes,
rather than Canis vulpes.Unfortunately for Frisch, he didnt follow the
taxonomic rules and so, in 1954, the ruling body on such matters (the
International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, or ICZN for short)
rejected his work, which meant that it couldnt be used by taxonomists.

Not everyone was happy with the ICZNs stance and considered that it
was confusing.Fortunately, the ICZN revoked their initial ruling in August
1979, almost ve years after Juliet Clutton-Brock and Gorbon Corbet
(both mammalogists at Londons Natural History Museum) submitted a
proposal to them arguing that the name Vulpes was recognised
throughout the world (and had been since the start of the twentieth
century) and that it was more important to be consistent in our naming
than it was to strictly follow the rulebook.In other words, for the last 75
years people have been using Vulpes to refer to foxes and itll confuse the
heck out of them if we now say they cant use that and need to use Canis
instead!The ICZN didnt entirely agree with this argument, but decided
that Vulpes was such a well-known name that an exception was justied.
So, most (although, as we shall see, not all) taxonomists returned to using
Vulpes Frisch, 1775 as the genus for most members of the fox group.In
2008, however, Francisco Welter-Schultes and Rebecca Klug at the
Zoologisches Institut der Universitt in Germany discovered an almost
unknown early work on animal and plant taxonomy by French naturalist
Franois Alexandre Pierre de Garsault, which he published in 1764.In this
volume, Garsault used the genus Vulpes without a species, but
accompanied it with a drawing of a Red fox.In taxonomic circles there is
a rule of preference saying that the earliest valid name or reference has
priority and, as Garsault used Vulpes in the same sense as, but 11 years
earlier than, Frisch, he gets the nomenclatural credit.In other words,
Garsault is credited as the rst person to use (the inventor of, if you like)
the genus Vulpes for foxes and authors using Vulpes Frisch, 1775 need
to amend the reference to say Vulpes Garsault, 1764 instead.

The precise point at which the Red fox was rst placed in the Vulpes
genus seems to have been lost in antiquity, but many early nineteenth
century writers used Vulpes as a subgenus within Canis -- so the Red fox
was referred to as Canis Vulpes vulpes -- and this continued until
relatively recently.By the 1820s, British zoologist John E. Gray was using
Vulpes as a genus and, in their 1832 Symbolae Physicae Mammalia,
German naturalists Wilhelm F. Hemprich and Christian G. Ehrenberg
recognised that the foxes could be grouped apart from the wolves and
proposed the Vulpini (a taxonomic grouping called a tribe, that sits
between the family and genus level) for them.In 1846, writing in the rst
volume of their Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, John J.
Audborn and the Rev. John Bachman grudgingly elevated Vulpes from
subgeneric to generic level, spurred on by the sheer number of species
already held within Canis:

The characters of this genus di"er so slightly from those of the genus
CANIS, that we were induced to pause before removing it from the
subgenus in which it had so long remained. As a general rule, we are
obliged to admit that a large fox is a wolf, and a small wolf may be termed
a fox. So inconveniently large, however, is the list of species in the old
genus CANIS, that it is, we think, advisable to separate into distinct
groups, such species as possess any characters di"erent from the true
Wolves.

The characters Audborn and Bachman were referring to, that separate the
foxes from wolves, include the pointed muzzle, vertically-slit pupils, only
slightly curved incisor teeth, slender form, relatively shorter legs and long,
thick, bushy tail.Various taxonomic arrangements were subsequently
proposed, some following Audborn and Bachmans decision and others
opting to either ignore Vulpes, or relegate it to subgeneric status.It would
be 34 years, however, before a signicant attempt at arranging the
members of the Canidae was published.



The Vulpini (fox) tribe is a diverse mixture of some 37 species adapted to
live in a range of habitats, from parched deserts to forzen ice oes.One of
the ve genera within this tribe, Vulpes, contains the 'true foxes' - 12
species that include grassland specialists like the Corsac fox (Vulpes
corsac - above left), desert specialists like the Fennec fox (Vulpes zerda -
above right), artic surviors such as the Artic fox (Vulpes lagopus) and, of
course, the generalist Red fox (Vulpes vulpes).

Driven by his disillusion with previous attempts to classify the members of
the dog family, the great London-born physiologist, and evangelical
evolutionist, Thomas Huxley published his detailed study on the
classication of the Canidae in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society
of London during August 1880.In this magnum opus, Huxley divided the
canids into two groups based on various cranial and dental
characteristics: the Alopecoids (true foxes) and the Thooids (hunting
dogs, wolves, and South American foxes that are currently assigned to
the Lycalopex genus).Huxley, however, retained the Red fox as Canis
vulpes.Nonetheless, the late 1880s represent the point at which canid
classication stabilised; at this point we had most of the species that we
currently consider to be members of the Canidae.

Following Huxleys scheme, Canis and Vulpes were variously used when
referring to the Red fox and some, Clarence L. Herrick in his 1892
Mammals of Minnesota for example, were still using Frischs specic
name vulgaris (i.e. Vulpes vulgaris), rather than vulpes.By 1912, however,
Gerrit Miller had adopted Vulpes vulpes in his Catalogue of the Mammals
of Western Europe and, in 1945, Simroe Foundation mammalogist
George G. Simpson published his classication of mammals in which he
split the dogs into three subfamilies, with all the living species placed into
the Caninae.Simpson recognised Vulpes as a genus within the Caninae,
but noted how:

the recent canines are quite uniform in structure, and it would be
justied from many points of view to unite them all in a single genus.

We then had Clutton-Brock and Corbets argument to the ICZN and the
eventual ruling in 1979.Just before this ruling (in April 1978), however,
American Museum of Natural History curator Richard Van Gelder agreed
with Simpsons 1945 concerns and relegated Vulpes to a subgenus within
Canis once more.Nonetheless, the ICZN has the nal say on these
matters and, under their Opinion 1129 (1979), it was ruled that Vulpes
vulpes is the valid name for the European Red fox.In order for a
taxonomic group to be considered valid it needs to contain all the
descendents of a common ancestor (we call this a monophyletic group); if
it doesnt (i.e. its missing some, or has extras) its considered invalid, or
paraphyletic.Overall, it seems that the ICZN made the right decision and
recent molecular studies have shown that Canis is paraphyletic.There
has been much work recently using di"erent genetic markers to assess
relatedness among the Canidae and each has proposed slightly di"erent
arrangements.To avoid dragging this section on unnecessarily, I wont go
into the details of them here.

The current situation is that the Canidae contains 36 species that can be
divided into two broad groups (Tribes): the Vulpini, which contains the fox-
like canids; and the Canini, which contains the dog/wolf-like canids.It is
the Vulpini that interest us here and this tribe contains three genera:
Otocyon (Bat-eared fox); Nyctereutes (Raccoon dog); and Vulpes (true
foxes).The six species of South American fox (Lycalopex) and the Crab-
eating fox (Cerdocyon thous) are grouped within the Canini.It seems that
the red fox group is only monophyletic if it includes two species that were
previously split out: the Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus) and the Fennec fox
(Fennecus zerda).Thus, it is now widely accepted that these species are
Vulpes lagopus and Vulpes zerda respectively, and this brings the number
of species currently held within the Vulpes genus to 12.Some authors
have suggested that Vulpes is paraphyletic unless it contains Nyctereutes,
but a study published in the journal Molecular Biology Reports in 2011
found no support for this, placing the Raccoon dog and the true foxes as
sister groups (i.e. more closely related to each other than to any other
group).

The Red fox shows what we call biological plasticity in other words,
theyre capable of adapting their form to handle di"erent environments.
The result is that Red foxes living in di"erent parts of the world can look
signicantly di"erent to each other.Consequently, there are currently 48
proposed subspecies of Vulpes vulpes, based on di"erences in size,
skeleton, teeth, colour, etc.No doubt some of these populations have
been separated for long enough to make some of the subspecies valid,
but it is very di$cult to establish which they are and it seems very unlikely
that all 48 are valid.A recent (2007) study led by Takashi Inoue at
Hokkaido University suggested that there were two subspecies of Red fox
living in Northern Japan; one being the common Eurasian fox and the
other being unique to Hokkaido.Anthony Mitchell-Jones and his co-
workers were sceptical about the number of proposed European
subspecies and, in their 2002 Atlas of European Mammals, considered a
maximum of ve -- more likely four -- to have any true validity.Using a
small sample of foxes collected from across the Northern Hemisphere,
Paolo Cavallini found that he could divide them into three groups based
on size.In his 1995 paper to the journal Annales Zoologici Fennici,
Cavallini explained:

Red foxes from North America are comparatively light, rather long for
their mass and with a high sexual dimorphism. British foxes are heavy but
relatively short, whereas European foxes are closer to the general average
among populations

Cavallini goes on to note that British foxes were more similar to European
animals than to those in North America; his sample was relatively small
(20 populations), but the data certainly suggest a separation is warranted
and further, larger scale, studies should prove rewarding.Cavallini was
not the only person to see such a di"erence between foxes on di"erent
continents and, although most biologists lump British and European foxes
together, some recognise a distinction between Eurasian and North
American foxes; the two are sometimes considered di"erent subspecies
(even di"erent species by some).

North American Red foxes
Early naturalists described several species of Red fox from North America
(photo, right) based on di"erences in size, colour, skull dimensions and
geographical range.By the end of the eighteenth century, however, most
of these had been synonymised with (considered to be types of) the
widespread American Red fox, Vulpes fulva (fulvus is Latin for reddish-
yellow or tawny).A study, during the late 1950s, of the pelts and skulls
of foxes collected in the US and compared to those from Eurasia found a
general cline in the foxes, concluding that the American fox isnt a
distinct species; instead it is a race/subspecies of the Eurasian fox.Some
relatively recent genetic work suggested that there are two major
groupings (or clades) of foxes in North America: foxes in Alaska and
western Canada were grouped together with those from Eurasia to form a
Holarctic clade, while those in some southern and eastern states formed
a second, genetically-distinct, Nearctic clade that is made up of animals
unique to North America.At some point during the Wisconsin glaciation,
the suggestion is that the Nearctic clade split into two subclades; one in
the east and one in the west. When the ice melted, around 10,000 years
ago, foxes in the east (the eastern subclade) followed the boreal forests
north and colonised eastern and central Canada.Foxes in the west
(Mountain subclade), however, colonised the alpine meadows and
subalpine parklands of high mountains.Within the mountain subclade,
there are four subspecies of apparently indigenous animals: three
subspecies of mountain fox that are restricted to high-elevation montane
and alpine habitats of the Cascades, the Sierra Nevadas, and the central
Rocky Mountains; and a subspecies unique to the Sarcramento Valley.It
seems that the mountain foxes are better adapted to the cold, harsh
conditions at high altitude and do not mix with foxes from low elevations.
In Yellowstone, for example, it appears that foxes living above 2,100m
(6,900ft) are genetically di"erent to (and dont mix with) those below this
altitude.

Early European settlers released Red foxes -- transported from Britain,
France and Scandinavia -- along the eastern seaboard (i.e. the eastern
coast of the USA, from Maine in the north to Florida in the south) for
hunting purposes as early as the mid-1700s.It had previous been
considered that these animals spread quickly, either displacing or inter-
breeding with the indigenous lowland populations, which appear to have
been very thin on the ground at the time.Releases continued for many
years afterwards and the population was added to by escapes and
releases from fur farms, most of which were also foxes of European
origin.Many authours had been of the opinion that all this inter-breeding
between the indigenous stock and released animals had invariably served
to dilute di"erences between the native and non-native populations in
most areas, and some have suggested that the Red fox common
throughout lowland North America today is actually a hybrid of many
di"erent subspecies from across the species range. The conclusion,
therefore, was that there is little justication for considering the lowland
American Red fox distinct from that found in Eurasia, although it was
acknowledged that -- as discussed above -- some native populations still
survive and do not appear to mix with non-native populations; such native
animals were typically considered subspecies at best, although the
potential is there for their evolution to distinct species.More recently,
however, the pciture in North America has changed a little.In a paper to
the Journal of Mammalogy in February of this year (2012) Kansas State
University biologist Mark Statham and colleagues presented their data on
the origin of the recently established fox populations in North America.
Statham and his co-workers compared the mtDNA proles of foxes from
six recently established American populations to that of animals from
Eurasia, Canada and fur farms.Intriguingly, the researchers found no
Eurasian haplotypes among the North American Red foxes (i.e. these US
foxes didn't share any genes or gene combinations with the foxes in
Europe or Asia, which one would expect if the American foxes were
descended from those in Eurasia).The ndings of this study warrant
further investigation and sampling (particularly of foxes in the east), but
the data certainly suggest that, despite the number of foxes imported to
(and moved around) the North American continent during colonial times,
non-native (introduced) lineages have only survived in areas where native
stock were absent.The data reveal a deep phylogentic split, which
suggests an ancient division within North American foxes.In other words
the biologists found that North America is composed of two very distinct
lineages of Red fox; one (i.e. those in Alaska and Western Canada) split
from those in Eurasia quite recently ( circa 50,000 BP), while the other (i.e.
those in the Western mountains of the US, Sacramento Valley, California,
and Eastern Canada/US) is much older, originating during the Illinoisan
glaciation (circa 300-500,000 BP).While these data don't suggest that all
North American Red foxes are a separate species from those in Eurasia,
they do raise the question of whether there are two distinct species within
North America.(For more information, please see the Q/A)

British Red foxes
The subspecies Vulpes vulpes crucigera was described from Germany by
naturalist Johann Bechstein in 1789.This subspecies, which was
noticeably smaller than the one Linnaeus described from Sweden 31
years earlier (the type specimen), had noticeably di"erent teeth -- they
were smaller, with widely spaced premolars that had obsolete or absent
secondary cusps -- and a brighter yellowy-red coat than the type
specimen.In his 1912 Catalogue of the Mammals of Western Europe,
former United States National Museum curator of mammals Gerrit Miller
Jr agreed with Bechstein that this was a valid subspecies -- one of three
found in Europe -- and gave its range as central and southern Europe,
from Ireland east to Greece.There has been much debate about whether
it is really possible to lump foxes from particular areas together and
whether tooth size and spacing is actually too variable among foxes to
o"er evidence of taxonomic separation.Releases of foxes imported from
Europe in Britain during the 17th Century and the interbreeding that
almost certainly occurred between them and indigenous stock further
weakens the argument for separation.Indeed, it is rare to nd post-1980
authors who consider crucigera to be a valid subspecies.There are some
genetic data from foxes in the Mediterranean that suggest distinct groups
do exist and that there may be a case for assigning some subspecies, but
the data simply dont exist for a su$ciently large geographical area to be
certain whether similar groupings can be applied to other Eurasian
populations.Indeed, a paper published in the journal BMC Evolutionary
Biology during 2011 looked at DNA samples from modern and ancient
(fossil) Red foxes from across Britain and Europe and found no clustering
of any sort and strikingly little apparent change in population size over
time.The authors concluded that:

It is probable that the high dispersal ability and adaptability of the red fox
has contributed to the lack of observable di"erentiation, which appears to
have remained consistent over tens of thousands of years.

In other words, rather than foxes being split into small groups in ice-free
regions (so-called refugia) at the last glacial maxima (which could,
through inbreeding, allow the build up of unique genetic traits that make
each population di"erent from another), the population was pushed back
as one large interbreeding group.Consequently, the majority of biologists
now consider that Vulpes vulpes is just a highly variable species that
ranges throughout Europe and Asia and do not attempt to categorize it
further.(For more information, please see the associated Q/A)

Finally, there has been some suggestion that urban and rural foxes may
be separate subspecies.To date, I know of no evidence in support of this.
Indeed, radio-tracking studies by several teams have shown that urban
and rural foxes can and do mix.The data do, however, paint a mixed
picture, with some animals dispersing out of one town, crossing several
kilometres of potentially suitable rural habitat, to settle in a neighbouring
town; others have dispersed from rural areas into towns and cities, while
some have done the opposite.The Bristol University team are quick to
point out that there can even be very short-term visits; rural individuals
have been tracked entering neighbouring urban areas at night to hunt.In
a 2003 paper to the journal Molecular Ecology, a team of scientists from
the Zoological Society of London and University of Zurich published their
data on the foxes living in the Swiss city of Zurich.The researchers found
that, although urban foxes appeared to breed most often with other urban
animals (unsurprising, given their social system), urban and rural animals
also interbreed.Indeed, the authors wrote:

"Currently observed levels of migration between urban and rural
populations will probably erode genetic di"erentiation [between urban and
rural populations] over time."

Consequently, pending genetic data to the contrary, the Palaearctic and
North American Red fox is classied as follows:

Kingdom: Animalia (Animals)
Phylum: Chordata (Possess a basic 'backbone')
Class: Mammalia (Mammals)
Order: Carnivora (Possess carnassial teeth)
Family: Canidae (Dogs)*
Tribe: Vulpini (Fox-like canids)
Genus: Vulpes (from Latin meaning 'fox')
Species: vulpes

* Note: Some authors place foxes within their own subfamily: the
Vulpinae.Here, however, I am following Ingi Agnarsson, Matjaz Kuntner
and Laura May-Collados 2010 phylogeny of the Carnivora.

For more information on how species are classied see: Taxonomy. (Back
to Menu)

Size: The Red fox is the largest member of the Vulpes genus and shows
enormous variation in size across its range; theyre also deceptively
di$cult to size at distance, often appearing larger than they really are
most foxes are about the same size as an adult domestic cat.Globally,
most individuals have a head and body length (HBL) in the range of 45cm
to 90cm (1.5 3ft); add an extra 30cm to 50cm for the brush (tail) and
foxes can reach a total length of about 150cm (just under 5ft).In the UK,
adult male foxes typically range in HBL between 67cm and 72cm (26 -
28in.), while females fall between 62cm and 68cm (2ft 2ft 4in.).The tail
makes up just over one-third of the total body length and the longest
record for a brush I have come across is 55.5cm (almost 2ft!).In his 1950
book, Wild Animals in Britain, Oliver Pike described one magnicent
creature that measured 64 inches (163cm) from nose-to-tail.By looking
at skull and tooth size measurements, Polish zoologist Elwira Szuma
found that the largest Nearctic foxes were those from Alaskas Kodiak
Island and the Kenai Peninsula, while the smallest lived in California and
Georgia; in the Palearctic, the largest foxes come from the Far East while
the smallest are from the southern borders of the Eurasian range.Within
Europe, Szuma found that Scandinavian foxes are the largest, followed by
those in Britain.

Foxes are also deceptively light canids; thanks in part to their very slender
leg bones, they weigh about 30% less than youd expect for a dog of their
size.In Britain, the average weight of an adult male fox is around 6.5kg
(14 lbs), with a typical range of 4kg to 8kg (9 17.6 lbs); adult females
average 5.5kg (12 lbs), with a typical range of 4kg to 6kg.In North
America, foxes typically range from 3.5kg to 7kg (8 15.4 lbs), with vixens
and dogs averaging 4kg and 5kgs, respectively.Globally, the range of
weights for Red foxes is generally given as 3kg to 14kg (31 lbs) although,
as we shall see, this should be extended to 16kg (35 lbs).With the
apparent exception of a few local subspecies (schrencki and japonica
living in Japan and some populations in Norway, for example), Red fox
size follows Bergmann's Rule -- i.e. body size is correlated with latitude --
so foxes in the north of their range tend to be larger than those occupying
more southerly areas (sometimes referred to as the north-south cline),
although the e"ect may be diluted where recent introductions have been
made.

Weight is often the only measurement given for foxes but, as H. Gwyn
Lloyd notes in his 1980 book The Red Fox, it is important to match weight
to linear dimensions; then we nd that although, for example, Irish foxes
appear heavier than English ones, theyre also leaner.Indeed, there is
terric variation in size within the UKs fox population and this presumably
reects di"erences in habitat.In a 1979 paper to the Journal of Zoology,
M.A.F.F. biologists L.W. Huson and Robert Page demonstrated that fox
skulls from Wales were larger than those from south-east England.In a
paper to the same journal during the following year, the same biologists
analysed skulls from six Welsh counties and found that those from
Pembrokeshire and Carmarthen were similar, but di"ered signicantly to
those from Brecon, Cardigan, Radnor and Montgomery.Huson and Page
considered that some of the di"erences between the populations were
attributable to variability between upland and lowland habitats.

Many authors have written of the di"erent breeds of fox to be found in
Britain (see Q/A for more details).Some authors have considered there to
be as many as four, but most have been content simply to divide them
into upland (variously referred to as Greyhound, Hill, Highland and
Mountain foxes) and lowland (Terrier, Masti", Cur, Little and Common)
foxes; upland animals are said to be larger, with longer legs, coarser
greyer fur and increased stamina over their smaller, shorter-legged,
orangey-red lowland conspecics.How many, if any, of these breeds are
actually distinct remains to be demonstrated, but several studies have
shown that Scottish foxes are generally larger than English ones, closely
matching Scandinavian foxes in size; some have suggested theyre
descendents of stock imported from the continent.The suggestion has
also been made that the long winter nights at high latitude could allow the
foxes longer to hunt when food is hardest to nd and more food could
allow them to grow larger.Another suggestion is that the increasing day
length leads to increased primary productivity (plant growth), which could
translate to more available fox food.Either way, the larger size implies an
adaptation to upland areas, where food is more widely dispersed and less
predictable and weather conditions are harsher (larger bodies lose heat
less quickly than smaller ones, which helps in cold environments, while
longer legs can be a bonus in snow).

There are many stories of large foxes having been spotted; the most
recent one I have come across was an interesting account of a fox the
size of a large roe deer that was reported near Tilford in Surrey on 30th
April 2011.Unfortunately, there was no photographic or video evidence of
the animal and, although the witness watched the animal for several
minutes and was convinced it was absolutely a fox, such reports remain
unconrmed.Invariably, most reports of very large foxes are cases of
mistaken identity several dog breeds, including long-haired Alsatians
and Red Huskies, can look very fox-like under some conditions.Even
dogs that don't have any particularly 'foxy' colour to them can, under
certain circumstances, appear very fox-like, as the below photo -- sent in
by Wildlife Online reader Lynn Harrison -- of a husky having been lying in
the ashes of a bonre shows.From time-to-time, however, large foxes are
recovered.


Even dogs that don't normally appear particularly fox-like in the
colouration can sometimes take on a rather 'foxy' appearance. This husky
ended up with a foxy tinge to its coat after playing in the ashes of a
bonre. A quick glimpse of the dog in its above condition could easily be
mistaken for a 'giant fox'.

The 1969 edition of the Guinness Book of Records gives the dubious
accolade of largest fox ever killed by a hunt to a 23lb. 12 oz. (10.8kg)
male caught on Cross Fell in Cumberland by Ullswater Hunt during 1936.
This record is interesting because the January 1906 issue of The
Manchester Quarterly mentions a 13kg (29 lb.) fox killed by a hunt at
Bowder Stone in Borrowdale (Keswick, Cumbria); presumably no
denitive evidence of this specimen remained when the record was
applied for.There are several other records at, or around, the 10kg mark
in the hunting literature, most considering these animals greyhound
foxes.The books largest fox title went to a 28 lb. 2 oz. (13.3kg) animal of
unknown sex shot on the Sta"ordshire-Worcestershire border on 11th
March 1956 that measured 136cm (4.5ft).More recently, in October 2010,
a pest control o$cer reputedly killed a 14kg (31 lb.) fox in South London
and later that year, on 26th December, a 12kg (26 lb.) male fox measuring
123cm (4 ft.) was caught in a cage trap on a property in Maidstone, Kent;
it was alleged to have killed the familys pet cat and the story made the
British media with all the usual hyperbole.This is undeniably a large fox
but claims in some newsmedia that this was a typical well-fed urban fox
dont seem justied, based on current data (see Q/A).Larger still was a
15kg (33 lb.) male fox shot near Winchester in Hampshire in late March
2005 and a 15.5kg (34 lb.) male that was shot near the North Somerset
coast during March 2009; the latter was an old animal, with extensive
tooth decay.In March 2012, however, two larger animals were caught and
a new record was set.One fox was shot by a gamekeeper near East
Grinstead in East Sussex, weighing 15.8kg (35 lbs) and measuring 130cm
(4ft 3in).The second animal was a 17.2kg (38 lb. 1 oz.) dog fox shot on a
farm in Aberdeenshire, north-east Scotland; it measured an impressive
145cm (4 ft. 9 in.) from nose to tail and was shot after apparently killing
lambs on the farm.There is also an unveried report of a 20kg (44 lb.) fox,
measuring 155cm (5ft 1in.), shot in the Mill Hill area of Greater London
during 1963.



Following the capture of the Kent cat killer, concerns were raised in the
media that access to a superabundance of food in our towns and cities
was breeding bigger foxes, and various unveried statements about how
urban foxes were getting bigger appeared in the press.Such claims may
have some grounding but, to the best of my knowledge, we currently
have no documentary evidence to support the oft-cited claim that urban
foxes are, on average, any larger than their rural counterparts, let alone
that urban foxes are getting bigger.I dont plan to go into any detail here
(see Q/A), but the question of what controls body size in mammals is not
an easy one to answer.Ultimately body size appears to be under genetic
control -- genes that code for growth hormones -- but the production and
release of these hormones can be inuenced by external factors, such as
food availability and climate, which raises the possibility that, under
plentiful conditions, body size could increase.There are data from Europe
suggesting that access to anthropogenic (man-made) food can increase
fox and badger skull size and some rescue centres have noted that urban
foxes are slightly heavier than rural ones.My own personal experience is
that urban foxes typically dont approach anywhere near the size of the
animal from Kent and are, if anything, smaller than the rural ones I have
come across. (Back to Menu)

Appearance and Colour: Red foxes are medium-sized canids with a skull
similar to that of a domestic dog, but narrower with a slender, whiskered
muzzle and large pointed, erect ears.The fox has an elongated body with
slender limbs and a long bushy tail (accounting for about 40% total
length) up to about 13cm (5 in.) in diameter.They have light skeletons with
proportionally longer hind legs than other canids, which provide them with
extra propulsion when pouncing.The forepaws have ve digits (four in
contact with the ground and a dew claw on the back of the leg), while the
hind feet have only four, lacking the dew claw; all paws are furred on the
pads (left), which helps mu%e their approach, prevent heat loss and
provides sensory information while hunting.The pad arrangement is
roughly oval, compared to the more rounded arrangement observed in
many other canids, including the domestic dog (see below).The eyes are
situated at the front of the skull, providing binocular vision and each
possesses a nictitating (protective) membrane that moves only when the
eye is closed.Vertically-slit oval pupils are surrounded by a large iris,
which is slate-blue in cubs, owing to a lack of the yellow pigment
lipochrome (see Breeding Biology), changing to gold/amber at around 4-5
weeks old.A layer of reective cells called the tapetum lucidium (meaning
roughly bright carpet in Latin) sits behind the retina and reects light
back into the eye, improving vision under low-light conditions (see:
Senses) and causing eye shine.Eye shine is a form of iridescence, which
means that the colour of the reected light can vary according to the
angle youre viewing it from.Nonetheless, eye shine is generally either
white or blue/green when viewed head-on, or pinkish-orange when the
animal isnt looking directly at the light source.

Foxes are highly prized for the colour and texture of their fur and animals
are still farmed (notably in the USA, Canada, and Scandinavia) for their
pelts.In a 1986 paper to the Canadian Journal of Zoology, Daniel Maurel
and colleagues, at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientique in
France, described how the Red fox coat consists of three fur types: ne
underfur that traps air close to the skin, thereby providing insulation; the
longer coarser guard hairs that provide water resistance and give the coat
its prized sheen/lustre; and intermediate hairs, which are similar to guard
hairs, but smaller (shorter and thinner).The hairs are arranged in bundles
called triads; one guard hair and two intermediate hairs, associated with
varying numbers of underfur hairs.The underfur covers the sides and
back of the animal and is short (about 35mm, just less than 1.5 in.) and
grey in colour.The guard hairs are longer, varying in length across the
coat (longest on the tail), and protrude through the underfur.Coat length
varies according to geography and season; in Europe and North America,
northern animals have longer coats than southern animals and winter
coats are generally longer than summer ones.Foxes do not sweat in the
conventional sense they have sweat glands (called apocrine glands)
associated with their hair follicles, but they do not excrete water in a bid
to cool the body (it has been suggested they play a scenting role).
Consequently, the shortest fur covers the face (muzzle, around eyes and
on top of head), ears, lower legs and paws (altogether about 30% of the
animals surface area); heat is lost in these areas, helping the animal to
cool down.

Pelt colour is highly variable; essentially ranging from white (although
most commonly yellow-red) to black.On their website, the Colorado-
based Fur Commission mention 39 di"erent colours and hues (I suspect
there are more); most are the result of experimental breeding and thus
exist only in captivity, but some populations (those living at high altitudes
in Yellowstone, for example) exhibit some unique colouration.
Occasionally some of these colour mutations are found in wild lowland
populations, but it is unclear whether they arose naturally or represent
animals that have escaped from fur farms.Some colour forms seem
locally common and, on the Taimyr Peninsula of Siberia grey-breasted
(sivodushka), blackish-brown (chernoburaya) and cross (krestovka)
colour morphs appeared in 20-30% of the collected pelts.Fox fur
colouration is under genetic control and, although many of the specics
of how the colours are inherited are still uncertain, it does seem that there
are at least two genes at work on di"erent parts of the animals
chromosomes (see Q/A).There are four main colour phases (or morphs)
found in wild populations: Red; Silver; Cross; and White. (Image:
Diagrammatic representations of the foreleg paw prints of a Red fox,
compared with those of a domestic dog and cat. Note the arrangement of
canid paws di"er from those of felids and the pads of the fox track
generally do not intersect as in dog tracks, although the quality of the
track depends on the ground conditions.)

Red is the most common colour morph, although there are many hues,
varying from reddish-yellow to very dark red/orange, with varying
amounts of black interspersed.The coat colour comes from pigments
called melanins that are deposited in the hair as it grows; the ratio of light
(phaeomelanin) to dark (eumelanin) pigment and the order in which theyre
laid down in the hair determines the exact colour.Guard hairs have bands
of black, yellowy-brown and white (no pigment) present at varying
concentrations across the body, causing blended colouration.In his Wild
Guide, Simon King notes that many of the red guard hairs have a red
base, dark centre and a red (or occasionally creamy white) tip.Red foxes
have varying amounts of black fur around their eyes, the side of the
muzzle, on the back of their ears and on their lower legs (often called
socks).A darker patch of hair near the base of the tail (over the
supracaudal scent gland) is also evident in many individuals; this area
lacks underfur, having only guard hairs with thick white ends and black
tips.A white bib that extends up to cover the bottom jaw and lower half
of the muzzle is common, while the lips and nose are generally brown.
The fur on the belly ranges from white to slate grey and the tail is often
less colourful than the body.There are occasional reports of black-
bellied foxes -- which have dark red backs and dark grey/black sides and
ventrum (belly) -- and, writing in 1954, Tarvo Oksala found that 18 (0.6%)
of the 3,000 Finnish fox skins he examined were of this type.There are no
equivalent data from Britain but, in his 1968 book Wild Fox, Roger
Burrows mentioned that black-bellied animals have occasionally been
caught by hunts here, including in Hampshire, Gloucestershire and
Shropshire.

Cross foxes are very similar to the normal Red morph, but have a dark
brown or black line that runs along the back to the base of the tail and a
second line running across the shoulders and down the legs; this forms a
cross pattern at the shoulder.Cross foxes are found throughout Europe
(recall the subspecies crucigera, or cross-bearer, described from
Germany) and common in North America, presumably testifying to the
spread of foxes introduced from Europe by early settlers.The bulk of
foxes (about 60%) fall into the Red colour morph, with Cross foxes
accounting for about 25%.

The degree of melanism is greatest in the Silver foxes; this is the earliest
documented wild Red fox colour morph.The coat is black, with varying
degrees of white frosting that comes from banding of the guard hairs;
eumelanin is deposited in the body of the hair and causes it to appear
black, while phaeomelanin is deposited further up, giving a paler tip.The
degree of silvering is highly variable as phaeomelanin deposition varies
across the body and between individuals; some foxes will be jet black,
while others can appear slate grey.There are several mutations of the
silver morph, one of which (the Alaskan silver) has a browner tint to its
coat.Melanism is more common in cold climates (often being highly
localized), so silver foxes are more common in northern regions,
particularly in the forest zones and forest-tundra belts of middle and
eastern Siberia (its rare in desert and steppe populations).Overall, silver
foxes account for about 10% of colour morphs.Jet black foxes are,
however, very rare in Europe; in his 2005 Carnivores of the World, Ronald
Nowak notes that such foxes are conned to the extreme north of Europe
and make up about 1% of the population.


The Red fox comes in an impressive range of colours (called 'morphs'),
including various degrees of melanism.Melanistic foxes range from jet
black, or black with a sprinkling of silver-tipped guard hairs (so-called
'Silver' foxes - above, left) to cross foxes (above, right), which have
various proportions of black and orange fur according to their genetic
make-up.
Black (melanistic) foxes are occasionally seen in the UK; being genetic
variants, they crop up from time-to-time with Red cubs in litters.In
September 2008 a young black fox was lmed in a cemetery on the
outskirts of Chorley in Lancashire (north-west England) and the BBCs
SpringWatch team lmed a black fox in a garden in southern England in
early June 2010; posts on the BBC forums suggest several black fox
sightings from around the UK during 2010, including in Hockley (Essex),
Crawley (West Sussex), Paisley (Scotland) and Clee Hill (Shropshire).I
have also received several e-mails from readers who have seen black
foxes, the most recent being an animal spotted in Llanelli, Wales during
May 2010.There was also a report of an adult fox with three cubs -- on
red and two black -- in Abingdon, Oxford during June 2011.The most
recent black fox sighting from Britain that I know of was an adult vixen
photographed by John Moore in a eld in the Cambridgeshire village of
Bassingbourn on 26th March 2012.Interestingly, looking at the photos
that John sent to ITV News, the animal has the long, ne coat typically
associated with North American animals and particularly typical of fur
farm foxes it makes me wonder whether this animal was an escaped
pet.Unfortunately, the animal was killed by a car three days later on a
road in Bassingbourn, Cambridge, but is now being studied by scientists
at the Anglia Ruskin University.

Work on farmed foxes has found that the degree of melanism is related to
temperament.The late geneticist Clyde Keeler demonstrated that,
because melanin and adrenalin are generated via the same hormone
pathway, black foxes tended to have higher adrenalin levels and be less
fearful than lighter coloured animals.Indeed, in a 1970 paper to the
Journal of Heredity, Keeler and his colleagues described pure-bred Red
foxes as a bundle of jangled nerves.There is also some indication that
silver and red morphs may have some physiological di"erences; working
in Poland, Wlodzimierz Nowicki found that farmed Silver foxes had
smaller arteries in their cardiac circulation than wild Red foxes, although it
is unclear whether this has arisen during the selective breeding process.

Very occasionally white Red foxes are reported from the wild; both albino
and non-albino animals have been documented.In their Mammals of the
Soviet Union, Vladimir Heptner and Nikolai Naoumov note that white (or
de-pigmented as Heptner and Naoumov call them) foxes are rare and
that such animals most often appear in the southern forest zone of region.
Interestingly, Heptner and Naoumov also mention that albinism usually
develops in foxes after years of insu$cient food, although its di$cult to
see why this should be so, given the genetic basis for the condition.

In his 1968 book Town Fox, Country Fox, Brian Vezey-Fitzgerald notes
that white individuals have been reported from Britain, the majority from
Devon; that said, he notes that ve were apparently caught at Whaddon
Chase in north Buckinghamshire, although some maintain that these were
cream rather than white animals.In his 1896 A Handbook of British
Mammals, Richard Lydekker notes that a white fox was killed in west
Somerset by the Taunton Vale Hounds in 1887, while Colonel Talbot, in his
1906 Foxes at Home, described a white fox caught in Wentworth, Surrey
during the late 1800s.Similarly, in his 1906 book, The Fox, Thomas Dale
refers to a white fox seen in Roborough Woods, Devon during 1898,
another in Essex and two in Somerset.In a brief note to Imprint, the
journal of the Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, during 1985, Colin
Howes reviewed the hunting literature for cases of white foxes in
Yorkshire.Mr Howes found that a white fox was taken by the Cleveland
Hounds in Eston on the North Yorkshire coast during the late 1800s, while
a very white fox was apparently ushed by the Bramham Moor Hunt on
a couple of occasions in the Hutton Thornes area, just west of York.
Finally, Mr Howes notes that a totally white fox was killed at Hawthorne
Bank, near Aldwark north-west of York during 1863.Elsewhere in the
scientic literature, an account of a number of white foxes in the
countryside below the Cheviot Hills appeared in the 1949 issue of the
Journal of the Zoological Society of Scotland, but I currently have very
few details on this report.More recently, in April 2006, a white fox was
seen several times on National Trust land in Thurstaston on the Wirral
Peninsula, another reported from Kensington, London during November
2009, one seen in an urban area of Derby in November 2010, and one
reported by a farmer out lamping in Lincolnshire during late October
2011.Two white, non-albino, foxes were shot in on a farm in Kent during
November 2011 and, in May 2012, a white fox was photographed on a
farm in Bethersden, Kent.The most recent encounter I'm aware of was an
unconrmed report of a white fox on an industrial estate in Bournemouth
(Dorset, UK) during mid-November 2012.

It is worth noting that not all cases of white foxes recorded from Britain
were Red foxes.Dale mentions a white fox seen in Kincardineshire, on the
coast of north-east Scotland, which was believed to have come ashore
from the wreck of a Norwegian vessel and was probably an Arctic fox.
Similarly, in 1984, Don Je"ries at the Nature Conservancy Council and
Institute for Terrestrial Ecology biologist Robert Stebbings published a
short paper in the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and
Archaeological Society about a strange light-coloured fox spotted in
Dorset, south-west England.The animal was seen on several occasions
on a farm near Poole during April 1983, before it was found (recently)
dead in a eld about 1km (just over half-a-mile) away, on 16th April.The
body was handed to the authors for identication and autopsy and turned
out to be a young female Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) that had died from
internal bleeding, apparently caused by a blow to the chest.The authors
point out that this animal obviously did not arrive from the arctic under its
own steam and so had presumably escaped (or was illegally released)
from a private collection or zoo.

In most cases, foxes fall into one of the aforementioned colour morphs,
but some may exhibit combinations of colour patterns or hues.Red
colouration with large white patches on the head (i.e. piebald), for
example, is well documented, as are white (rather than the usual black)
socks.Vezey-Fitzgerald mentioned a piebald fox that was killed by the
Taunton Vale Hunt in Somerset during the 1880s and, more recently, a
lady e-mailed me to describe a brindle-coloured fox she saw while out
walking her dogs near Southampton in April 2011; she described it as
having vertical stripes the whole length of the body, fairly wide apart,
black on very dark 'yellow'.Similarly interesting patterns have been
reported from North American foxes, including a fox run-over near
Yellowstones Tower Junction during 1998 that was largely (about 60%)
black, with patches of red.Golden foxes are also reported from time-to-
time; these have a yellow/blonde coat, similar in hue to Golden Labrador
dogs a family were reported from Stoborough Heath, near Arne in
Dorset (UK) during May 2011 and again in the summer of 2012.A four-
week old male cub was found in Flackwell Heath near High Wycombe in
Buckinghamshire at the end of April 2011 and was taken to St
Tiggywinkles (a wildlife hospital based in Aylesbury); the cub had very
light blonde (bordering on white) fur.

A very common feature among all colour morphs of foxes is a white --
occasionally black or grey -- tip (or tag) to the tail.This tip is noticeable
on the cubs tail even before it is born (by around 46 days into gestation)
and, in adult British foxes, covers about 10cm (4 in.) of the tail.The tail tip
is often larger in North American foxes and, both there and in Europe,
northern animals tend to have longer white tips than southern animals.In
a brief paper to the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London
during 1963, Gordon Corbet discussed the frequency of white tail tips
among British mammals.Corbet looked at skins kept at the British
Museum and found that 11 (73%) of the 15 skins from England and
Wales, and 27 (87%) of the 31 collected from Scotland had a white tip to
the tail, giving a total occurrence of 83%.In his paper, Corbet noted that
the hairs were albino (i.e. devoid of any pigment) and that, among foxes:
a white tip is normal but by no means universal.Many early authors and
countrymen maintained that it was possible to sex a fox based on the tail
tip; the white tip was considered to be indicative of a male.This is not the
case and either sex can possess a white tag.

A nal note on the variation in coat appearance should include
aberrations.In rare cases, a fox may lack some or all of the guard hairs
and possess underfur that is tightly curled, giving a woolly appearance;
these animals are Samson foxes (photo, left).It should be noted that
Samson isnt a species of fox; it is a genetic condition a"ecting several
di"erent fox species, including Red, Arctic and Grey foxes.Samson foxes
are well known from fur farms (where their pelt is almost valueless) and
have occasionally been recovered from the wild.Early naturalists
considered that the Samson condition was caused by a parasite or poor
diet, but breeding studies by Finnish biologist Tarvo Oksala during the late
1940s and early 1950s suggested that it is an unstable recessive genetic
trait, meaning that it can be inherited, but normal foxes may moult into
Samsons and vice versa.According to several authors, Samson foxes are
larger than normal foxes and tend to live around human settlements
where they feed largely on rubbish; they also carry more fat, have faster
metabolisms and shorter claws than normally-furred animals.I am not
aware of any Samson foxes having been seen in the UK, but wild
individuals have been shot in parts of northern Europe, including Finland,
Sweden and Norway as well as in the USA.(For more details, please see
the Q/A: What is a Samson fox?) Occasionally, completely hairless
animals are spotted.Some diseases (mange, malnutrition and
hypotrichosis, for example) can cause hair loss, but in these cases it
seems that the hair follicles are missing from the skin; these are alopecic
foxes.

It is debatable whether foxes undergo one or two moults per year and
many authors simply consider them to have a single, protracted moult
each year (lasting for much of the summer).Maurel and his team,
however, described two moults in his French foxes: a spring moult where
the old winter coat was lost and an autumn moult during which underfur
grew in.The foxes started shedding in early April and the coat lost its
lustre; by the end of the month new growth had started at the base of the
legs.New hair growth progressed up the legs and, by the end of June, the
summer coat completely covered the legs, abdomen and anks; growth
on the back and tail was complete by late August or early September (this
was the summer coat) and then theres something of a hiatus for a month-
or-so.During October and November, Maurel and his colleagues recorded
growth of some of the ne (underfur) hairs that hadnt grown during the
summer this thickened up the coat in time for winter.


The seasonal moult pattern of the Red fox. The light grey indicates the
progression of the summer coat, while the dark grey areas show the
progression of the winter coat. The star at the beginning of April signies
the rst time that hair is shed. Diagram originally published Daniel Maurel
and colleagues in the Canadian Journal of Zoology during 1986 and is
reproduced here with permission from the publisher.

In Britain and Europe, the coat is in best condition from about November
to February.Some foxes may begin to moult in late February, but most
don't start until April and the protracted nature of the moult can lead to a
"piebald" appearance during much of the spring and early summer.Often,
breeding vixens begin to moult before barren vixens or males and can
look very tatty or mangy for much of the late spring.From late January
or early February the hairs become brittle and the tips begin to break, so
the coat begins to lose its condition and worn patches may become
apparent on the back and rump.Hormonal studies on fur farm foxes have
demonstrated that the moult is controlled by endocrine glands and
stimulated by light such that altering the photoperiod (i.e. making the day
appear longer or shorter) can cause the moult to speed up or slow down
accordingly. Some reports suggest that a warm autumn can delay
moulting by a week-or-two, while an early frost accelerates it.
Interestingly, there is some evidence that the moult progresses di"erently
in silver foxes; one 1948 study documented a single, spring, moult that
started at the rear and moves forward. (Back to Menu)

Distribution: The Red fox is the most widespread of all wild canids and
has the largest natural distribution of any non-human land mammal.The
distribution of the fox covers an estimated 70 million sq-km (~27 million
sq-mi) and includes a diverse array of habitats from deserts to Arctic
tundra.The distribution of the Red fox can be summarised as being
Holarctic, Oriental, Australasian, Northern Neotropical and African.In
other words, these foxes are found throughout the UK and Europe east
through Russia, Kazakstan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan into northern India, China
and Thailand to Japan.To the west, Red foxes are found in the northern
and eastern USA, north through Canada and Alaska to Ba$n Island;
theyre conspicuously absent from many of the Arctic islands including
Greenland and Iceland.Within Eurasia, it appears that the severity of the
winter (i.e. the lowest temperature) limits the northern range of the Red
fox.This species doesnt appear to have spread far into the African
continent, although it is found on the northern fringes (north Morocco,
Algeria and Tunisia) and down through eastern Libya, western Egypt into
northern and central Sudan, roughly following the course of the River Nile.
They are also absent from much of the southern and western USA,
Mexico and most of the Southern Hemisphere.Where Red foxes are
absent they are typically replaced by other fox species, including the
Fennec (Vulpes zerda) and Cape fox (Vulpes chama) in Africa, the Gray
fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) in most of southern North America and six
species of Zorro foxes (Lycalopex spp.) in South America.

At the far north of their range Red foxes are replaced by the Arctic fox
(Vulpes lagopus) and, where the two species meet, it appears that Red
foxes are dominant and displace the smaller Arctic species.Indeed, in his
1987 book Running with the Fox, David Macdonald noted that the
northern range of the Red fox is set by food availability, while the
southern range of the Arctic fox is set by the northern range of the Red.
Red foxes are generally absent from Arctic tundra because their
metabolisms are higher than that of the Arctic fox; they thus require more
food than the high Arctic winter can provide.Experiments on captive
Arctic foxes in 1950 showed their metabolic rate only began to rise when
external temperatures dropped to between -45 deg-C and -50 deg-C (-49
and -58 deg-F) and they only began to shiver after more than an hour at
-70 deg-C (-94 deg-F).The equivalent data for Alaskan Red foxes in
winter pelage (published in 1955) demonstrated that their metabolism
started to rise at -13 deg-C (8.6 deg-F) and had almost doubled by -50
deg-C.As well as the Arctic, Red foxes also penetrate into the Middle
Eastern deserts, although these animals are considerably smaller
(averaging 3kg / 6.6 lbs.) than those in Europe.


The approximate global distribution of the Red fox (Vulpes vulpes)

Red foxes were introduced extensively to North America by early
European settlers and Brian Vezey-Fitzgerald, in his 1960 book Town Fox,
Country Fox quoted General Roger Williams (the Master of the Iroquois
Hunt in Kentucky) who, writing in 1904, said:

The red fox was unknown in America previous to 1760, at which time a
number of them were imported from England and liberated on Long
Island in New York.

Some authors suggest the release was made by one of the rst English
governors of Long Island, although several early writers (during the early
1600s) mention black foxes -- even buying these animals from Indians --
but say nothing of red animals.In his 1980 book Red Fox, Huw Lloyd
notes that subsequent introductions were made in Maryland, New Jersey,
Virginia and several other eastern states circumstantial evidence
suggests this was in response to an absence of foxes in the area.
Whenever and wherever they were rst released, these foreign imports
spread rapidly westwards across most of lowland northern North
America, as forests were cleared, seemingly to the detriment of the native
stock, which now only survive in isolated pockets, primarily at high
altitudes (see Q/A).

Australia has also seen its share of Red fox introductions, with animals
released to provide sport (rather than rabbit control) by home-sick
expatriates who formed the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria; they have
arguably caused more serious ecological problems here than anywhere
else.In his 1987 book, Macdonald notes that the rst conrmed
importation of foxes to Australia was the English animals released by T.H.
Pike onto his property near Keilor in Melbourne, Victoria (on the south-
eastern tip of the island) during 1845.According to Macdonald, two males
were subsequently released near Sydney in 1855 and, in 1864, a male
and two females arrived on a ship from Su"olk and were released by the
Melbourne Hunt Club.It appears, however, that most of these initial
releases failed to take and it wasnt until almost a decade later that
introductions began seeing success.It is now widely considered that the
present Australian fox population was founded by two shipments
liberated in Victoria: one consisted of two foxes released by Dr King near
Ballarat in 1871; the second was about ve animals released on Point
Cook, in the Werribee-Geelong district of southern Victoria, by Mr T.
Chirnside in the early 1870s.By 1880 the species was widespread in
Victoria (especially between Geelong and Melbourne), but hadnt moved
far outside the region; it was at this point that the colonization gained
momentum.In a paper to the journal Mammal Review during 2010, Glen
Saunders -- at the New South Wales Department of Industrys Vertebrate
Pest and Weed Unit -- and two colleagues told the story of how the Red
fox spread across Australia.The species crossed the south Australian
border in 1888, reached New South Wales (NSW) in 1893, and
Queensland and Western Australia early in the twentieth century.The rate
of movement was particularly rapid (up to 160km/108mi per year) in the
inland saltbush and mallee country, and there is some evidence that the
spread was actively assisted by humans.Foxes now occupy all of
continental Australia except for the northern arid and tropical regions, at
least 18 o"shore islands, and even penetrate into the hot deserts of the
interior when seasonal conditions permit.Foxes were illegally released on
to Tasmania during the late 1990s, although the population didnt become
established until 11 animals were deliberately released in three areas of
the island in late 1999; carcasses have been found here since 2001.There
is currently no evidence of foxes in New Zealand and it has been illegal to
import them there since 1867.(Image: Distribution of the Red fox in
Australia 2006/2007. One of the National Fox Maps produced by the
Invasive Animals CRC and Australian Government, published in: West, P.
(2008). Assessing invasive animals in Australia 2008; available from
feral.org.au. Map copyright of the Commonwealth of Australia and
reproduced here with permission.)

At the pinnacle of the last ice age, global sea levels dropped by about
120m (almost 400 ft.) and this exposed a land bridge that enabled
animals to move freely between Britain and the European continent until it
was ooded about 6,500 years ago as the ice began to melt.Fox
numbers no doubt waxed and waned in post-glacial Britain and early
hunting literature suggests that foxes became more numerous and widely
distributed between about 1750 and 1850, with a further population and
range expansion between 1950 and 1965.Indeed, it was during the 1950s
that the Red fox expanded its range in Scotland and it has been
suggested that the abundance of rabbits dying from myxomatosis
permitted this colonization, although some have argued that initial
establishment occurred before the rst myxomatosis outbreaks and was
linked with the planting of conifer forests.Regardless, in 1973, Hugh Kolb
and Raymond Hewson suggested that, as rabbits disappeared from much
of the countryside, foxes were forced to disperse looking for food (aiding
further colonization) and, as vole numbers began increasing in the
absence of rabbit grazing, fox populations stabilised.

Red foxes are now common throughout mainland Britain and Ireland,
where theyre generally considered native -- this is despite there
apparently being no evidence of Red foxes in Ireland prior to the arrival of
humans (and hence the suggestion by some that they were imported for
their fur in pre-historic times) -- and have been introduced to several
islands.This species is absent from all of the Scottish islands except
Skye, where they were illegally introduced, and from the Channel Islands
and the Isles of Scilly.In their contribution to the 2008 Mammals of the
British Isles: Handbook 4th Edition, the Bristol University biologists note
that foxes are also present on the Isle of Harris, having been illegally
introduced.Scottish Natural Heritage, however, tell me that despite
occasional reports of foxes from the island, none have ever been
conrmed and no signs have been found by the army of mink trappers
that operate on Harris.Foxes have experienced a tumultuous history on
Anglesey; they were relatively abundant until some point during the
mid-1800s when they appear to have died out and the island remained
devoid of foxes until three animals were released near Holyhead during
August 1960.Angleseys foxes kept a low prole until the late 1960s,
when complaints of poultry losses caused them to be hunted; despite
intensive fox control throughout the 1970s, the population remained
stable.Along the south coast of England, foxes are absent from
Brownsea Island despite the strong population at nearby Sandbanks; the
National Trust rangers there have never had a conrmed case of a fox
from the island, although there are occasional reports of brief sightings,
the most recent being about ten years ago.Foxes were introduced to the
Isle of Wight in 1845 to provide sport (the Isle of Wight foxhounds were
also established in this year) and the establishment of the population was
in no small part the work of huntsmen Ben Cotton and Henry Nunn; foxes
are now widespread and common on the island.

On some of Britains islands, the status of the fox is less clear-cut and the
situation on the Isle of Man is a good example.There is no archaeological
evidence that the fox is native to Man, although there is some evidence
that they were present in small numbers during the mid-19th Century, with
the rst report being an animal killed at Lezayre in the north of the island
during November 1861.The foxes of Man kept a low prole until 1986,
when four adults were apparently released into the Santon Valley, in the
south-east of the island, and then again in 1990, when biologists David
Macdonald and Elizabeth Halliwell found a litter of cubs in the same
region.In a 1994 paper to the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography
Letters, Macdonald and Halliwell used various factors (e.g. landscape
maps, prey densities and distributions, and faecal counts) to estimate that
there were between 120 and 300 animals on the island in 1990.It soon
became clear that this was probably a considerable over-estimate and, in
a 2003 paper to Mammal Review, Game Conservancy Trust biologists
Jonathan Reynolds and Mike Short reassessed the situation, concluding
that there were likely to be no more than 15 animals across the entire
island.Indeed, the researchers noted that foxes may be entirely absent
from the island, although there are occasional (unconrmed) reports from
residents.Most records are held by the islands Museum of Natural
History, but record coordinator Kate Hawkins told me that reports are rare
and there have been very few since 2002 the most recent credible
report made to her was of droppings discovered in a suburban park in the
south of the Isle of Man during November 2009.The Senior Biodiversity
O$cer on the island, Richard Selman, tells me he receives about one fox
report per year, of variable credibility -- the most recent reliable report
being from Ballure, on the edge of Ramsey, in December 2010 -- but is of
the opinion that there are, at best, only a handful of foxes on the island.

The situation on the Orkney Isles, o" the coast of Caithness, northern
Scotland is similarly unclear.In 1936 a pair of foxes were released in the
Ysenaby area of Sandwick, West Mainland (Ornkey), but were found dead
a few months later.Since then, there have been several reports of foxes
'at large', but none have ever been conrmed.On 12th December 2007,
however, a seven-month old male fox was found dead on the roadside at
Holm straights between Fea and Cannigal (Orkney) by a gentleman on his
way to work (photo, right).Post-mortem analysis revealed that the animal
died from blunt-force trauma to the head (having probably been hit by a
car) but was in otherwise excellent condition, with pristine teeth and
claws.Naturalists Chris Booth and Richard Matson summarized the
status of the Red fox on Orkney in a short paper to the Orkney Field Club
Bulletin during 2008, concluding that the animal had escaped (or been
released) from a private collection and had spent no more than a couple
of days in the wild.The Orkney Isles are currently considered fox-free.At
the time, there were rumours that the fox was deliberately planted as a
hoax, rather than an escaped pet accidentally run-over.There is, as far as
I know, no proof that it was a hoax, but such activities arent unknown a
fox believed to have been caught in a snare elsewhere was dumped on a
road in the south of the Isle of Man during 1990, and the carcass of a fox
found on Shetland in 1996 is also believed to have been a hoax. (Back to
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Habitat: Red foxes thrive in almost all habitats because they are relatively
unspecialised in their way of life.Consequently, foxes have been found at
most altitudes, from sea level up to 3000m (almost 10,000 ft) and in most
terrestrial environments on Earth; their distribution and abundance is a
result of the availability of food and suitable breeding sites.Red foxes are
generally a species of, and do best in, mixed landscapes consisting of
scrub, woodland and farmland.Red foxes are found in dense woodland
and plantations, on moorland, coastal dunes and above the tree-line in
mountain ranges, but the reduction in (or high seasonality of) food supply
in such places tends to mean they are less abundant in such habitats.
Indeed, it is widely held that the clearance of woodland to make way for
agricultural land created very favourable conditions for Red foxes and, in
conjunction with the introduction of game species (e.g. brown hare,
rabbits, pheasant, domestic fowl, etc.) to these habitats, is largely
responsible for the rapid colonization of Eurasia and North America by
this species.

In 1980, M.A.F.F. biologist Huw Gwyn Lloyd wrote of the habitat of the fox:

Areas least suitable for foxes, whether harassed or not, would have
some or all of the following characteristics; at, open country; few
woodlands or very open deciduous woodland; neat or simple eld
boundaries (fences or ditches, e.g.); no scrub or uncultivatable land; large
eld, mainly arable and a high water table.

In plantations, foxes prefer a mosaic of close-canopy conifers (which
o"ers shelter) at the pre-thicket stage (which provides food) once the
canopy has completely closed, the productivity of the plantation declines
and, if used by foxes, it now serves only as a denning or daytime resting
site.In general, foxes tend to use mature conifer plantations as daytime
resting sites, moving into nearby open areas to feed.The use of the
habitat will also vary seasonally.In Tuscany, central Italy, Paolo Cavallini
and Sandro Lovari found that foxes showed a preference for marquis
(scrubwood) habitats, meadows and pine forests, with the former being
most (and the latter least) used during cold seasons.There are many
accounts of foxes focusing more time and energy on coastal and dune
habitats during seabird breeding seasons.Similarly, observations by
David Macdonald in Oxford have shown that on warm, damp nights foxes
can spend several hours searching livestock elds for worms, while in hot,
dry conditions they focus their attention more heavily on small mammals
in woodland or crop stands.

Foxes thrive in many urban areas and it is in streets, back gardens and
parks that most people will encounter a fox nowadays.Indeed, Mark
Cardwine gives the Red fox the accolade of most urbanized canid in his
2007 book, Animal Records, having adapted to life in towns and cities
more successfully than any other member of the dog family (presumably
excluding domestic pooches).Under the denition argued by Robert
Francis and Michael Chadwick in their 2011 paper to Applied Geography,
the Red fox is a truley synurbic species; their population densities are
higher in urban areas than in rural habitats.As a testament to their
comfort around urbanization, a fox has even been reported to have raised
a litter of cubs in the 54,000-seater Yankee Stadium in New York! In
Britain, however, foxes tend to do best in middle-class suburbs with low
density housing where most houses are privately-owned and
accompanied by a reasonable size garden that is largely free of
disturbance.In a 1986 paper to the Journal of Animal Ecology, Bristol
University biologists Stephen Harris and Jeremy Rayner suggested that,
in Britain, the boom in private house construction after 1930, which
occurred as increased mobility allowed people to live and work further
apart, led to a proliferation of privately owned three-bedroom semi-
detached houses that appear to o"er foxes just what they need.

Contrary to popular misconception, urban foxes arent the preserve of
Britain theyre now present in most large European cities and are also
found in cities across America (including Los Angeles, New York and
Washington), Australia (Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and
Sydney), Canada (Toronto) and Japan (Hokkaido and Sapporo).Despite
being called urban foxes, it is a misrepresentative to think that these
animals are conned to built-up areas.Tracking studies by Bristol
University have shown that urban foxes move freely into and out of the
city while feeding and looking for mates; some rural-based animals were
tracked moving into the city at night to feed.Similarly, in a 1982 paper on
the distribution and ecology of urban foxes, Oxford University zoologists
David Macdonald and Malcolm Newdick found that dispersing foxes
moved back and forth between town and country, and they concluded:

A categorical division between rural and urban foxes was found to be
without foundation. The proportion of urban and rural habitats embraced
within the home-ranges of foxes varied from one to the next, and foxes
moved readily between them.

A recent review of Red fox distribution reported that there are 'signicant
numbers' of foxes living in an estimated 114 cities across the globe,
including 56 in the UK, 40 in mainland Europe, 10 in the USA and six in
Australia.For more information about when and why foxes colonised our
towns and cities, please see the associated Q/As. (Back to Menu)

Abundance: There are no estimates of the global population of Red foxes,
although they are widely considered to be the most populous wild canid.
The number of foxes in a given area is controlled by several factors (see
Q/A), although three seem particularly important: food availability; suitable
den sites; and predators/competitors (particularly other larger canids such
as coyotes and dingoes).In some areas populations are regulated by
social factors, although this tends to be only when other factors (e.g.
food) arent limiting.Similarly, the severity of the winter has been shown to
impact fox abundance, with the milder winters at lower latitudes
supporting larger fox populations.The percentage of open areas also
inuences fox density, with fewer foxes in dense forests (i.e. those with
80% or more tree cover) and numbers increasing as the percentage of
open land increases.According to one Russian study, the spread of foxes
seems to be favoured by forests with 30% to 60% open areas.In short,
fox populations arent uniform; instead they vary according to the
hospitality of the local environment.

Fox abundance varies with habitat, with the lowest densities (fewer than
one animal per sq-kilometre) found in conifer forests/plantations and open
elds.Densities are higher in deciduous woodland and on agricultural
land (1-2 per sq-km), with yet more in the suburbs (2-3 per sq-km) and
the highest densities (4 or more per sq-km) in urban areas, particularly
large cities.There is considerable variation and densities of three foxes
per sq-km may be found in highly productive mixed farmland.

The British fox population also shows considerable variation in
abundance according to habitat, with densities generally ranging from
about one fox per four sq-km, to four (or more) per sq-km; the average is
about two animals per sq-km.In a paper to the Journal of Zoology during
2000, a team of biologists at the Game Conservancy Trust in Hampshire
presented pre-breeding density estimates of 0.41 fox per sq-km, 1.2 per
sq-km and 0.16 per sq-km for rural mid-Wales, east Midlands and East
Anglia, respectively.There are, however, extremes from one breeding
pair per 40 sq-km (15.5 sq-mi) in hill areas of Scotland, to the largest
population density ever recorded (37 foxes per sq-km) in Bristol city
during the early 1990s.The Pitsea Landll site in Essex that recently
featured on the BBCs SpringWatch boasts a high density of foxes a
student who looked at fox dynamics on the site on behalf of the resident
naturalist, Phil Shaw, estimated a density of one fox per eight hectares
(approximately 12.5 foxes per sq-km, or 32.4 foxes per sq-mile).Again,
this illustrates how a readily available food supply can signicantly
inuence fox abundance.

In 2007, Polish mammalogists Kamil Barton and Andrzej Zalewski
surveyed the literature on fox populations in Eurasia and found that winter
density ranged from 0.001 to 2.8 animals per sq-km, with an average
density of 0.21 per sq-km.In other words, the range was one fox per
1,000 sq-km (386 sq-mi) to almost three foxes per sq-km, with an
average of one fox per ve sq-km (2 sq-mi).In northern Europe densities
are typically one fox per three-or-ve sq-km while, in Spain, densities are
around one fox per three-quarters sq-km.


The severity of the winter seems to limit the abundance of foxes across
Europe and Asia.As you progress northwards, fox density reduces (i.e.
each fox holds larger territories, so there are fewer foxes in a given area)
presumably because nding food where snow cover is often deep and
ground frozen is more di$cult.

Generally-speaking, the highest stable fox densities are found in the most
heterogeneous (diverse) habitats, so urban and arable areas can support
two-or-more foxes per sq-km, while relatively barren upland regions rarely
exceed one fox per ve sq-km.Indeed, a recent paper to the journal Acta
Theriologica by German biologists reported fox densities in settlements
that were three- to eight-times higher than those in "strictly rural" of
southern Germany.In homogenous (uniform) habitats, densities can be
high, but are more prone to cyclical uctuations in accordance with prey.
How prone to uctuation a fox population is depends on the species on
which it can feed.In heterogeneous habitats foxes can switch to a
di"erent species when one declines; this is not the case in homogenous
habitats where voles are often the main (sometimes only) source of food,
so fox populations uctuate with the number of voles.There are
occasions where homogenous habitats can sustain high fox densities.
Working in Sweden during the late 1960s, for example, Jan Englund
found that fox populations in southern areas, where rabbits were found,
were steadier in number and breeding success than those in northern
areas, which are dominated by rodents.

The data on fox abundance in North America is patchier than for Europe.
There are, as far as I know, no recent estimates (most sources refer to
those given by Dennis Voigt in 1987), but those that do exist suggest that
fox density typically ranges from one animal per ten sq-km (4 sq-mi) in
less productive areas (arctic tundra and boreal forests, for example), to
one animal per sq-km in more productive agricultural landscapes.Locally,
however, densities may be higher, with an estimated ten animals per sq-
km on Round Island, Alaska in 1989.In a 1991 paper, Rick Rosatte and
colleagues estimated the fox population of metropolitan Toronto to be
about 1.3 animals per sq-km.In much of North America coyotes (Canis
latrans) are an increasingly common sight in urban areas; coyotes are
known to displace foxes and their presence could account for lower fox
densities here than in urban Britain.

Total numbers are far more di$cult to estimate than population density;
hence few attempts have been made.Several local estimates exist,
although most are rather dated now.A study of the New Forest, during
May 1974, estimated there to be 592 animals in an area of 271 sq-km
(about two foxes per sq-km).The most recent published census
(conducted between 1999 and 2000) estimated that Britain has a stable
population of around 230,000 animals (before cubs are born); a further
150,000-or-so are estimated to be in Ireland.In 2011, the o$cial urban
population guestimate stood at about 33,000 animals, although this was
calculated in the 1990s and recent media articles have quoted gures
higher than this.Indeed, a survey of more than 11,000 respondents from
across the country -- completed as part of the recent Foxes Live series
shown on Channel 4 during May 2012 -- led Dawn Scott at Brighton
University and Phil Baker at Reading University to an estimate of 35,000
to 45,000 foxes living in urban Britain.Dr Scott informs me that they are
planning to publish a more detailed analysis of the survey data later in
2012.To the best of my knowledge, there are no estimates of the total
European population, nor of that in North America.In Australia it is equally
di$cult to assess fox numbers because the diversity of habitats and
seasonality is arguably greater than in the UK; that said, estimates of 7
million animals have been put forward!Australian fox biologist Clive
Marks told me that:

The Australian environment is so variable in habitat and habitats change
in carrying capacity due to season and drought/boom and bust cycles etc
making any one gure meaningless; much more than for the UK I would
guess that is not subject to extreme changes.