An Odd Fact about Foxes

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The Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes, may sometimes be gray and the Gray Fox, Urocyn cinereoargenteus, is sometimes tinged with red.

A general identifying characteristic is the white tip on the tail of the Red Fox, whereas the Gray fox has a black tip on the tail.

Native Red Fox

(Click on the photos for a better look at the fur)

A nice look at that innocent face

We photographed this fox by the Yukon River near Carmacks, Yukon Terr., Canada. This Red Fox is a native of North America as are all Red Foxes in boreal North America down to the Rocky Mountains. The Red Foxes in the Southern US were imported to the Southeast from England somewhere between 1750 to 1800, for fox hunts, and were later taken to California for the fur trade.

This Red fox was in its short summer coat. Notice some of the long hairs which it has not yet shed and you can see why people usually think of the fox as having short legs and a big bushy tail. In the winter, this fox would have a tail probably 3 times as big and would look like a short dumpy little fellow with all of that long hair. Nearing winter, it will put on some weight and they do store extra food in caches for the winter. They also have been known to clean out a hen house in a night, however its typical diet includes rodents, rabbits, birds, insects, fruit, earthworms, reptiles, and carrion.

The Gray Fox is the only North American wild dog that regularly climbs trees. Even though the Gray Fox is found over most of N.A., it usually avoids farmlands favored by the Red Fox.

See the Arctic Fox in the post below.

These odd posts all started over at Katney's.

Troy and Martha