The Vulpes vulpes, more commonly known as the Red Fox, is a member of the family Canidae. Red foxes are the most wildly distributed of the wild canines in the world, ranging from North America, Asia, Europe and northern Africa. They have been recorded to be able to grow up to an average of 22 to 24 inches long, and a height of 15 to 16 inches tall, with their tails adding an extra 13 to 17 extra inches in length. Red foxes also generally weigh somewhere between seven to 15 pounds as well, and have a lifespan of five to 10 years. While usually reddish in color with the occasional dark highlight, they can vary between light yellow to black morphs. Their ears are pointed with a black trim and their jowls, chest and belly are usually white with nearly black legs. Red foxes are also famous for their large bushy tails with a white tip at the end, and their fluffy coats they carry from winter to spring, which they shed in July (Tekiela 2005).
Originally living in habitats such as forests and prairies, the spread of civilization has caused foxes to also adapt to cities, suburbs and farmlands as well. A den, sometimes a hollow log, is what red foxes usually use as their home for their young. Sometimes dens are dug beneath a log or a rock in the bank of a stream; a mound of dirt, up to a foot tall with scat deposits, are usually found in front of the den's main entrance (Tekiela 2005).
As known omnivores, red foxes have been recorded as preying on small mammals like mice, moles, rabbits and hares, as well as berries, apples, nuts, fish, insects and carrion. Being very intelligent and having the ability to learn from past experiences, the red fox is very feline-like in behavior, even pouncing on its prey in a similar way that a cat would. The red fox's mating season takes place from January to March, with a gestation period of 51 to 53 days. A female red fox, known as a vixen, has a litter between one to 10 kits once a year in April or May and, despite being solitary animals, the mating pair will stay together and defend their kits until the end of their first summer (Tekiela 2005).
During the cold winter months, red foxes end up growing a thicker and heavier winter coat. While generally solitary animals, the winter months are around the time red foxes start to prepare for their mating season by digging up natal dens and starting up the courting process (Terrierman 2010). Even though foxes create these dens, they usually don’t sleep in them. Instead, the red fox will usually just curl up out at the base of a tree or rocks, wrapping their bushy tails around themselves to keep warm during the cold winter nights.
Since most of the prey the red fox hunts live beneath the snow or are buried in the ground, the red fox has adapted to be able to discover these animals over the winter months. What allows the red fox to find food is their very strong sense of hearing, being capable of hearing and locating the squeak of a mouse that is the distance of a football field. This ability of hearing low-frequency sounds allows the fox to detect small mammals digging and gnawing underground. If the red fox finds a small animal this way in the snow, the fox grabs it by jumping up and diving, head first, into the snow where they heard the animal. Red Foxes also tend to hunt even when they aren’t hungry, and since food is really difficult to come by during winter, foxes will cache extra food underground or bury it in the snow, using a combination of memory and smell to find these foods later on.
Print Works Cited
Cabrea, KA. 2012. Natural History of Red Foxes. http://www.bear-tracker.com/redfox.html. Viewed March 2014.
Tekiela, S. 2005. Mammals of Michigan Field Guide. Adventure Publications, Inc. Cambridge, Mn
