From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Good articleRed fox has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
May 2, 2012 Good article nomineeNot listed
September 28, 2013 Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the " Did you know?" column on April 2, 2004.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ...that four different continents host red fox populations?
Current status: Good article

Mating time

"Two months prior to oestrus (typically December)" - that's ambiguous. Is "Two months prior to oestrus" in December or is "oestrus" in December? I'm observing a pair of foxes in my garden and trying to work out their behaviour! Martin of Sheffield ( talk) 16:53, 25 January 2021 (UTC) reply

British Columbian fox

@ William Harris: the subspecies article I just redirected here does give both an ITIS ref and an MSW3 ref. Also apparently Hall 1981. Does that work? -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 23:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC) reply

Unfortunately no, because these all refer to V. v. abietorum without mentioning the "British Colombian fox". Hall mentions V. abietorum on page 885 and that is all. I seek a WP:RELIABLE, WP:PRIMARY, or WP:SECONDARY source that states that this sub-species is named the "British Colombian fox". It is almost intuitive from the province where the type specimen was found, but it is not the only fox to inhabit BC. I have had an initial look for the developing separate article, but I stopped when I realised that there was no material to support a WP:COMMONNAME for this fox, and therefore its ability to meet the WP:GNG was in doubt.
I concur with your redirect; it would have been recommended if you had transferred the distribution information and reference from Cook 2010 to "Red fox" as well, however that is now actioned. William Harris (talk) 04:11, 5 June 2021 (UTC) reply
After some deep-searching, I have discovered the name "British Columbia red fox" per Preble 1908 - I am satisfied now. (It is not often that the wolf comes to visit the fox, but this one had me intrigued.) Regards, William Harris (talk) 07:59, 5 June 2021 (UTC) reply
Oh - you meant the provenance of the common name. Yeah, got nothing on that. Glad you found a source. -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 11:37, 5 June 2021 (UTC) reply

Range changes

The section "Colonization of North America" contains the following sentence: "Although they ranged far south during the Wisconsinan, the onset of warm conditions shrank their range toward the north, and they have only recently reclaimed their former American ranges because of human-induced environmental changes."

This summary of what happened during the past 22,000 years or so needs clarification. If foxes are back to the ranges they had during the Wisconsinan glaciation, they have done it in a much warmer climate. So there must be something else going on, perhaps including adaptation. The last clause gives as a single cause "human-induced environmental changes", presumably not climate changes but vegetation and the removal of competing predators. Over what period did this occur? Are we talking about the spread of N American agriculture, or the end-Pleistocene extinctions? Polysinger ( talk) 18:14, 6 February 2022 (UTC) reply

New fox species

I'm highly concerned that there is another Fox species in the horn of Africa maybe there is a Somali fox species because animals don't have passports and don't have borders and every day we're discovering a new species and foxes are very resilient since they can survive blazing deserts and freezing tundras so there can be a chance of a new fox species 2001:8F8:1425:CE51:3172:A0C1:5E30:4B86 ( talk) 13:08, 4 March 2022 (UTC) reply

wait does that mean that they would be able to evolve to be able to live in a crowded city? or is it that food would be to scarce to where they would just leave even if they mutated Davidbobwinski5432 ( talk) 13:51, 5 April 2023 (UTC) reply

Red Fox Native Range Map

I would suggest that the Red Foxs' presence in the South East United States should not be considered natural, nor its status native as indicated on the map in the sidebar. Coyotes experienced a similar range expansion into the South East and yet are not generally considered native.

QuickbeamForester ( talk) 00:38, 8 March 2022 (UTC) reply