Red Fox (Vulpes Vulpes) Matthew Petrusek

  • Kingdom: Animalia
  • Phylum: Chordata
  • Class: Mammalia
  • Order: Carnivora
  • Suborder: Caniformia
  • Family: Canidae
  • Genus: Vulpes
  • Species: V. vulpes

List 'o' relatives

  • Arctic fox
  • Bengal fox
  • Blanford's fox
  • Cape fox
  • Corsac fox
  • Fennec fox
  • Kit fox
  • Pale fox
  • Some species of dogs/wolves
Red Fox (Vulpes Vulpes)
FEnnec Fox (Vulpes Zerda) (smallest of the species)
Arctic Fox (Vulpes Lagopus)
Foxes have longer hind legs in relation to front legs, meant for jumping and pouncing on their prey

Fox Facts!

  • (What does the fox say?) Foxes actually bark, they are related to dogs, but they have specific tones for specific things
  • They're in the Canidae family, the Vulpini tribe, and the Vulpes genus, Dogs are in the Family of Canidae, Tribe of Canini, and Genus of Canis
  • Red Foxes have the greatest geographic range of all of the Carnivora family
  • The Red Fox is also the largest of the True Foxes

Whine - Made shortly after birth. Occurs at a high rate when kits are hungry and when their body temperatures are low. Whining stimulates the mother to care for her young; it also has been known to stimulate the male fox into caring for his mate and kits.

Yelp - Made about 19 days later. The kits' whining turns into infantile barks, yelps, which occur heavily during play.

Explosive call - At the age of about one month, the kits can emit an explosive call which is intended to be threatening to intruders or other cubs; a high pitch howl.

Combative call - In adults, the explosive call becomes an open-mouthed combative call during any conflict; a sharper bark.

Growl - An adult fox's indication to their kits to feed or head to the adult's location.

Bark - Adult foxes warn against intruders and in defense by barking

Though I was unable to find any percentages of comparison, I think that the percentage of similarity to one of its closest relatives, Rüppell's Fox, would be close to 90% because they are both omnivores and have similar skull features. (Red Fox Left - Rüppell's Fox Right)

Comparison of Red Fox skull to Rüppell's Fox skull
The Canidae fam.
The homologous stuctures

There are organisms with basic structures of Fins, Wings, or Grasping things. Humans have hands and fingers (ESPECIALLY OPPOSABLE THUMBS!!!

A homologous structure is a body part with the same basic structure and embryonic origin as that of another organism.

Vestigial structures are useless structures or body parts that are literally just there....eventually will go away.

Foxes have a Vestigial structure known as a Dew Claw. Dew Claws are found above the paw. This particular Dew Claw is useless by it being too far to assist in gripping anything.

Dew Claw on a fox

I was unable to find another ancestor for the foxes other than V. Qiuzhudingi.

V. Qiuzhudingi's Jawbone, they ate ALOT of meat.
Red Fox jawbone

V. Qiuzhudingi had a diet focused almost entirely on meat, eventually, as it evolved, the foxes lost their diet of all meat, and instead became omnivores.

Transitional fossils are fossils that show changes to other species that kept happening until now. Whales' ancestors had nostrils on the front of the skull, it eventually moved to the top of the skull.

Embryology is the study of Embryos and their development. It shows at first almost every embryo is very similar, but as they go through development they change drastically, showing that everything was at one point related.

Though I couldn't find a fox embryo in development, I went for a dog's embryo.

|Sources|

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_fox

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canidae

http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/f2013/eidensch_matt/adaptation.htm

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulpes_qiuzhudingi

Credits:

Created with images by USFWS Headquarters - "Red Fox" • Alexas_Fotos - "fuchs wild animal predator" • MrGuilt - "Snoozing Fennec Fox" • tpsdave - "norway fox arctic" • diapicard - "fox red fox wild"

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