Foxes are carnivorous, canine, and foxes, and generalized taxonomy also classifies animals under the genus "big-eared fox" and "gray fox" as "foxes".
When humans talk about foxes, they have negative perceptions such as cunning, suspicious, and thousand-year-old creatures such as "fox fairies" and "fox spirits", but this is because ancient people did not understand the habits of animals.
Thinking that the fox must be a god and fearful, the rulers used this to fabricate the image of the fox as a fairy and a spirit, advocating the worship of fox immortals and the construction of fox fairy temples, and some wizards also used the name of fox immortal possession to carry out rituals such as purification, and over time the relevant superstitions of foxes gradually became deeply rooted in the hearts of the people
Living in modern society, we can no longer be like this, wearing and chiseling, from the perspective of science and biology to understand the fox this creature, the article will introduce several representative foxes, and their characteristics, habits.
The fox or fox protagonist in folk tales, usually referred to as the red fox, is also known as the fire fox
The red fox lives for about 14 years, which is considered a long-lived animal among canines
The body length is 70 cm (the world's largest fox), the tail occupies about 20-40 cm; except for the abdomen and tail tip are white, the legs and ear tips are black, the rest of the body is reddish brown, which is the origin of the "red" fox.
Distribution range, habitat The distribution range of the red fox is very wide, almost the entire northern hemisphere has its traces, such as North America, Europe, Asia, northern Africa, the red fox is the most widely distributed carnivore; the red fox is very adaptable to the environment, mountains, plains, forests, grasslands, deserts, human towns have their traces.
In the 1850s, the European subspecies of the red fox was introduced to Australia, causing a negative ecological impact on the native species of Australia, and was listed as one of the world's top 100 invasive alien species.
Habits, behaviors, eating habits
Foxes are omnivores, like to eat rodents, birds, insects, fruits and other food, although the red fox living in the town will sometimes steal poultry in the farmhouse, but mainly eat the field rats or rabbits, can eliminate agricultural pests for humans
sociality
Usually, they are alone, but during the breeding season, they will form groups and fox families can often be seen living together
Defensive skills Are suspicious, to a new environment will first carefully observe, if encountered predators, will sneak into other fauna or jump into the river to take refuge, or secrete a foul odor from the glands, let the chasers retreat, if they have been caught or even pretend to be dead, take advantage of their unprepared time to sneak away, some hounds will follow the odor secreted by the glands to search for red foxes, red foxes will stop secreting odors if necessary, or adjust the tiger away from the mountain to transmit the odor to the sheep.
The fox usually lives in a cave or tree hole, and when digging a hole, it will also dig several exits to spread the risk, when the enemy enters the cave from the exit of the agar, the fox can escape from other exits, and the highly alert fox if it detects that the cave is targeted, even if the predator has not yet entered the cave, the fox will escape with the cubs overnight
Mutant Red foxes have many mutants or hybrids, and there are a variety of body colors, but unfortunately the beautiful coat color is a threat, which will be used by greedy humans to make fur, creating an industry of fox breeding.
The mutated varieties of red foxes with melanization will have different coat colors, such as blue-gray, silver-gray, gray, gray-black, etc. The variations of the red fox have almost all black body color, which is very rare.
It may be a breed of red fox and silver fox, and there will be a black cross pattern on the front shoulder and back.
Arctic fox As the name suggests, foxes that live along the coast of the Arctic Ocean and its islands, also known as "snow foxes" and "white foxes"
The Arctic fox is about 53-55 cm long (males are larger than females), and the tail occupies about 30 cm; the fur is long, soft and thick, which can withstand the cold environment, and the soles of the feet are also densely hairy, which can walk on ice and snow; small, round ears, reduce the exposed area and avoid body temperature loss
Seasonal hair change Because of snowfall or snowmelt, the environmental color of the summer and winter seasons varies greatly, in order to avoid being found by predators, the Arctic fox will change its fur twice a year, and change it to brown or dark brown fur in summer, which can be integrated into the environmental color of rocks, dirt and shrubs, and in winter it is replaced by snow white thick hair, which is completely integrated into the snow landscape.
Eating and hunting Arctic foxes mainly eat lemmings, and other foods include fish, birds, bird eggs, arctic rabbits, shellfish, and berries
Arctic fox smell and hearing is very good, you can smell the smell of the lemming den or hear the call in the lemming nest, the arctic fox will quickly dig the lemming nest under the snow, when the snow is almost the same, the arctic fox will jump up high, with the power of jumping with the legs to crush the lemming nest, the lemming in the nest will be eaten; this to judge the depth of the snow and the location of the lemming nest, if the position is wrong, it will fall short, if the snow is too deep, the head will hit very painful.
In the summer, the food is relatively abundant, and the arctic fox will store excess food in the nest; when eating the stored food in the winter, in addition to jumping foraging, the arctic fox will also track the polar bear and eat the leftover kitchen waste of the polar bear, but this is a very dangerous behavior, and when the polar bear is hungry, it will also attack the arctic fox
Ability to adapt to the environment Because living in a desert environment with hot days and a large temperature difference between morning and evening, a set of body structures adapted to this environment has been developed.
The fur is creamy (only the tail tip is black), reflects sunlight during the day and keeps warm at night,
The proportion of the ears is large, which helps the blood dissipate heat, and the soles of the feet have fur to protect the soles of the feet from being burned by sand. The newborn pinnacles fox have folded ears, and when they open their eyes after about ten days, the ears will expand with them.
Cave The auricular fox will burrow in the open sand or in the dunes with fixed plants, the more solid soil, the cave can reach 120 square meters in size, and even as many as ten entrances and exits, and the cave will even be connected with the caves dug by other auricular fox families; but the softer sand, the excavated nest has only one entrance and one inner chamber space.
In the heat, the auricular fox will hide in the nest to escape the heat, and when it is cooler, it will come out to move and forage, and it is a nocturnal animal.
Sociality From captive ear foxes, it can be inferred that they are social animals living in pairs, that the family is a pair of parents and descendants of them, and that even older siblings stay in the family until younger siblings are born.
Foxes are cunning or suspicious, in fact, for survival, which is no different from other animals; foxes live for more than ten years at most, where to become immortals; fox spirits not to mention, this is the negative hat that humans put on them! In fact, foxes are actually no different from ordinary animals, and even cute.
But when encountering foxes in the wild (chances approach zero), don't get too close to them or even feed them because they are cute, after all, foxes are still wild animals (carnivorous!). ), a far-flung view is enough!