Apr172009
Vulpes vulpes--the red fox--in Littleton

POSTED AT 01:16 PM

I have to add this entry about a red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and her four kits that I have been watching near my house.  Right down the street from me, there is a large farm field--they usually just grow hay there, but it is currently cut short.  In the middle of the field there is an area of bare earth with a bit of loose dirt on it.  Last week we saw a mother fox and her four kits come out of the hole.  The mother came out first and looked around.  She then made a noise and her babies came tumbling out!  The four kits wrestled and chased each other and the mother sat about twenty feet away from them, keeping watch.  Another day, we saw her bring them what looked like a dead chicken!
 
The photo below shows the mother fox and her babies, called kits.
 
I looked up foxes in Massachusetts and found out that there are two species of foxes in Massachusetts; the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and the gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) (http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/wildlife/living/living_with_foxes.htm).   Both species are common in our state, but, although I have seen many red foxes, I have never seen a gray fox.  This was the first time that I saw baby foxes, or kits. 
 
Red foxes breed in late January to February, and they use a den that is a hole dug in the earth.  The entire hole, which often is a hole dug by a different animal like a woodchuck and enlarged by the fox, can be 15 to 20 feet long.  A litter of four kits like I saw is the most common, and the babies are ready to be independent by the next fall.
 
One thing that I found curious was that the foxes were living practically in someone's backyard, and close enough to a road that we could see them.  However, the website says that foxes often raid people's garbage, so it would make sense that they would live close to humans.  Although foxes, like bats, skunks, and raccoons, can carry rabies, I found some of the suggestions on this website to be a bit ridiculous!  For example, it says, "Don't let foxes intimidate you! Don't hesitate to scare or threaten foxes with loud noises, bright lights, or water."  They only weigh from six to fifteen pounds!  I thought that the mother fox and her babies were beautiful.
 
Update May, 2009: Apparently there are actually SIX kits!  Here is a more recent picture of two of them:
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Comments

 
  • Derek Bolivar

    I was wondering if there was any difference between the gray and the red fox besides the color of their coat?

    5/1/2009 3:38:47 PM
  • Mr. Shoemaker

    Students do not have to travel far to see wildlife right here in our own backyard at LMS. Yesterday we had one Mallard Duck in the little catch basin off the 6th grade wing. This morning she had a friend join her. If it continues to rain like it has the last couple of days I can't wait to see the badelynge of ducks in own little pond.

    5/7/2009 8:29:20 AM
  • MsFinnerty

    From Digimorph.org:

    Urocyon cinereoargenteus, the gray fox, commonly inhabits the wooded and brushy regions of northern Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, and the southwestern, western (except Rocky Mountains region and Washington state) and eastern United States. This primitive canid is noteworthy for its omnivory (consuming small mammals, invertebrates, and fruits), and a talent for climbing trees. The introduction of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) into North America from Europe in the 1600's and increased agricultural development are implicated in the decline of Urocyon populations in Canada.

    Urocyon is one of the earliest foxes to appear in the fossil record. The extinct species U. progressus is recorded from Blancan (approximately 3.5 million years before present) localities and may be ancestral to U. cineroargenteus, which appeared about 1.5 million years ago. By the end of the Pleistocene, U. cineroargenteus was widely distributed across North America.


    Molecular phylogenetic analyses identify Urocyon as the basal canid, not closely related to any of the other canid groups (the wolf-like canids, South American foxes, or the Vulpes-like foxes). However, morphological studies suggest that Urocyon and Otocyon (bat-eared fox) are sister taxa, most closely related to Vulpes. Distinctive lyrate to U-shaped parasagittal crests on the skull, and a dentary with a well-developed subangular lobe and high condyle, are features shared with Otocyon.

    5/7/2009 10:59:04 AM
  • MsFinnerty

    Derek, strangely enough, the red fox and the gray fox are not that closely related. Here is a cladogram (evolutionary tree like we studied in class) of the canids (dog family):
    math.ucr.edu/home/baez/diary/september_2007.html
    Scroll down until you see the cladogram.

    5/7/2009 11:00:04 AM
 

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