Gray fox
| Gray fox | ||||||||||||
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Gray fox ( Urocyon cinereoargenteus ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Urocyon cinereoargenteus | ||||||||||||
| ( Schreber , 1775) |
The gray fox ( Urocyon cinereoargenteus ) is the third important fox species in North America , alongside the red fox and the kit fox . To distinguish it from the island gray fox , it is sometimes also called the mainland gray fox .
features
Gray foxes have distinctive coat patterns: their backs are gray, flanks, neck and legs are yellow-brown, and the underside is white. A black stripe runs down the back and tail; the tip of the tail is also black. The head body length is 65 cm, plus 35 cm tail; the gray fox weighs about 5 kg. On average, males are slightly larger than females. Tooth formula: 3/3 1/1 4/4 2/3 = 42
distribution and habitat
The gray fox is widespread from southern Canada via the USA and Central America to Colombia and Venezuela . He is a resident of deciduous forests who avoid open terrain. For this reason, it is only very sparsely distributed in the American Midwest.
Way of life
_(7-19-08)_canet_rd,_morro_bay,_slo_co,_ca_-1_(2687014473).jpg)
The gray foxes (and their relatives, the island gray foxes) are the only dogs that can climb trees. That is why they are also called tree foxes in North America . They climb trees when they are hunted by enemies, but also of their own accord, for example when looking for food. Gray foxes are mainly nocturnal. In areas where they are rarely hunted, they can also be seen during the day. They usually start looking for food before sunset. The main food is probably tree-dwelling croissants , but also mice, rabbits, birds and insects, along with berries, fruits and other vegetable foods .
The gray fox does not dig its own burrow, but looks for shelter for the day in hollow trees, crevices in the rocks or marmot burrows. They become active at night. Gray foxes are likely to be monogamous and stay together in pairs for a lifetime. There are an average of four puppies in the litter.
Systematics and evolution
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Phylogenetic systematics of dogs
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The first scientific description of the island gray fox comes from Johann Christian von Schreber in 1775. Schreber described the species as two species, which he named Canis cinereo argenteus and Canis virginianus and thus classified them as dogs in the genus Canis .
The gray fox today forms the genus Urocyon together with the island gray fox . On the basis of morphological and molecular biological data, both were categorized together as a sister group of all recent dogs, while in classical systematics they are usually assigned to the real foxes (Vulpini). This position as the sister group of all dogs was confirmed in 2012, whereby the ancestors of the gray foxes probably split off from those of all other dogs about 16.5 million years ago, but the separation into the two species known today only about a million years ago.
Together with the nominate form , 16 subspecies of the gray fox are currently distinguished:
| subspecies | distribution |
|---|---|
| Urocyon cinereoargenteus borealis | Northwest USA |
| U. c. californicus | Southern California |
| U. c. cinereoargenteus | Eastern USA |
| U. c. costaricensis | Costa Rica |
| U. c. floridanus | US states on the Gulf of Mexico |
| U. c. fraterculus | peninsula Yucatán |
| U. c. furvus | Panama |
| U. c. guatemalae | Chiapas (Mexico) to Nicaragua |
| U. c. madrensis | South Sonora , Southwest Chihuahua , Northwest Durango (Mexico) |
| U. c. nigrirostris | Southwest Mexico |
| U. c. ocythous | Central Plains , USA |
| U. c. orinomus | Southern Mexico, Isthmus of Tehuantepec |
| U. c. peninsularis | Baja California (Mexico) |
| U. c. scottii | US Southwest, Northern Mexico |
| U. c. townsendi | US Pacific Coast |
| U. c. venezuelae | Northern South America |
Evolutionary history
The island gray fox, native to the Channel Islands of California, descends from the gray fox . During the last Ice Age , gray foxes came to the northern three Channel Islands and developed further there. Island gray foxes are a typical example of island dwarfing - these foxes are not much larger than a house cat.
See also
- Gris fox fur
Web links
- Urocyon cinereoargenteus in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2006. Posted by: Cypher et al , 2004. Retrieved on 11 May, 2006.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Rurik List, Natali Garcia-Penas: Wild Dogs . Ed .: Udo Gansloßer, Claudio Silleo-Zubiri. tape . Filander Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-930831-63-5 , Endemic Foxes of North America, Gray Fox, p. 105 ff .
- ↑ a b Kerstin Lindblad-Toh et al .: Genome sequence, comparative analysis and haplotype structure of the domestic dog. Nature 438, December 2005; Page 803–819. ( Abstract ).
- ↑ a b c Don E. Wilson & DeeAnn M. Reeder (eds.): Urocyon cinereoargenteus ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed).
- ↑ Erik K. Fritzell, Kurt J. Haroldson: Urocyon cinereoargenteus (Carnivora: Canidae) . In: Mammalian Species . tape 189 , 1982, pp. 1–8 ( full text [PDF; 981 kB ]). Full text ( Memento of the original from December 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Katrin Nyakatura, Olaf RP Bininda-Emonds: Updating the evolutionary history of Carnivora (Mammalia): a new species-level supertree complete with divergence time estimates. BMC Biology 10, 2012. doi: 10.1186 / 1741-7007-10-12
