South American Foxes

[Genet]

Do any of you know any websites on them or some information? There doesn't seem to be much information on them or pictures . The South American foxes are usually known as zorros. Some examples of them are culpeos and gray zorros.

[Spiritfox]

Hi there,

There's not much information on the Maned Wolf (aka South American Fox). Their behavior is simmilar to red foxes, but maned wolves are much larger and less cat-like.

You might find what you're looking for at:

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/chrysocyon/c._brachyurus

A search for "maned wolf" in the Google Image Search turns up a lot of images too.

Thanks for stopping by!

SpiritFox

[Rangfar]

Hiya Genet!!

Wow, all the way from South America!!!

I can't say that I've done too much studying of the Maned Wolf. But, along with Google, try Altavista.com. They oftentimes turn up a lot of images or webpages that Google sometimes misses, since they have a different system of information-sorting.

Have fun looking for Maned Wolves!!

Rangfar

[Genet]

I'm not actually looking for stuff about maned wolves. I'm looking for probably some better pictures or maybe more information on the lesser known foxes in South America. It is almost impossible for me to find anything on them since almost no one knows about them. Thanks for the help though.

[Rangfar]

Hiya again Genet!!!

Well, I'm certainly not *denying* the possibility that there are foxes in South America---even perhaps common North American grey foxes---over there where you live. I wouldn't even barely be one bit surprised if there were red foxes there (well, maybe just a little bit, but...). It looks however like you're right that unfortunately almost nobody knows about SA foxes of any sort except for a select few, like you, who have seen or heard valid reports of them first-hand (er, first-paw). Anyway, I'm very interested in helping you out in any way that I can, and though I know almost nothing when it comes to foxes in South America, I am very interested in whatever research project/s you have done or are currently doing, and I would love to speak with you about the subject in greater detail.

If you want to do that, could you please e-mail me at rangfar@hotmail.com? Thanks!! I look forward to hearing from you again, whether through e-mail or through other means of communication such as this awesome forum!!

Happy posting!

Rangfar

[Keaalu]

I've extensively studied the little SA zorros, and yes, they're impossible to find out any information on. I have a few pictures at home, mind, I'll try remember to bring them with me...

A few things I remember offhand: South American Grey foxes are a different species to the "normal" grey fox (U. ciner.), but you do get grey foxes in SA, although not very far in to the country as they're not suited to the habitat. It's too hot and wet for V vulpes, as well, as they're more of a cold, "dry" climate creature.

And the crab-eating fox was so named as the first specimen found happened to have a crab in its mouth, but crabs aren't all it eats. ;)

The maned wolf isn't actually a wolf, but then it's not a fox either - it's sort of "in between".

Next time I come up Uni I'll try to remember to bring my documents with me. Just... don't hold out much hope of me remembering, I'm always forgetting things...

[Rangfar]

*totally interested foxie reminds Keaalu to bring documents*

[Rangfar]

Here's some stuff I pulled out of the search engines about SA foxes, though it's not a very good overall report:

South American Fox
Azara's (or Pampas) Fox
(Dusicyon clupaeus - scientific name; the Maned Wolf is "Chrysocyon brachyurus")

[Rangfar]

Now that I look harder at it it looks like my sources sort of contradict themselves. Yeah, nobody knows very much at all about these little SA grey foxes except maybe Keaalu, or somebody who hasn't visited this forum yet (and who exists on one of the last pages that the search engines turn up). I'll let you all know if I discover anything more, or anything more that's *worth* discovering at all.

[Rangfar]

Edit: "Systran's" web translator is about twice as good as Babelfish. Also, the pic I linked to earlier has just vanished. I don't know if it's a temporary thing or not, but hopefully it'll show up again shortly.



Aha, now here we go!!!! The translation is a bit rough (hey, it's Babelfish for you) but hopefully it'll be informative enough for some sort of educational use, if this is indeed the correct species of fox. The problem is that, if this indeed is the species of fox you're looking for, it's supposedly been extinct since about 1876.

If you can read Spanish (or Portuguese or whatever language they use down there), you might be able to interpret the website (Which is here).



==========

Scientific name: Dusicyon australis

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Canidae

International Estatus: Extinguished

National Estatus: Extinguished

Other vulgar names: Island fox, fox of the islands, fox of the Falklands, fox-wolf, "warrah" (= will guar?), fox wolf of the Falklands, Antarctic fox.
Characteristics: Robust fox of similar aspect to the red or culpeo fox (Dusicyon culpaeus) of the Patagonia, with about 90 cm. in length of head and body and 30 cm. of tail. The coat was extremely dense and specially had a brown-yellowish tonality with the end of the black hairs in the back. The neck and the legs were yellowish with the whitish belly, throat and lips. The ears were internally grayish and externally berries and the brown tail in the base happened soon to blackish ending in a white, characteristic end that only shares with will water down-guazu' (Chrysocyon brachyurus) between the canine South Americans. According to the English mastozo?logo Olfield Tlomas the foxes that populated each one with the great islands of the malvinense archipelago represented different geographic races since those of Great Malvina were smaller and from clearer coat with reddish dye. Australis thus distinguished for this Island to Dusicyon australis and for the Island Solitude to Dusicyon australis darwinii. In spite of to have extinguished does but of a century still they continue the taxonomic discussions about its true systematic location. For some authors, those who here we followed, it would have been an insular species of the Dusicyon sort that includes other similar species of the neighboring continent. Others have maintained that the Dusicyon name must be reserved exclusively for this species is left Pseudalopex for the near species, and even somebody is dangerous the possibility that it was a variety next to the domestic dog (Canisfamiliaris or Canis lupusfamiliaris). This last one is little probable since in addition to morphologic reasons, they lack the archaeological evidences that demues- train the presence of the man in tiemposprehist?ricos in that austral archipelago. Finally some investigators include it in the Dusicyon subgenus, of the Canis sort, which would seem one extreme simplification that we did not compare.

Habitat: Oceanic Pastizales, turbales and coasts in the malvinense archipelago.

Distribution: Archipelago of the Falklands in the South Atlantic (Islands Great Malvina and Soledad). Like a curiosity, Llar?s Samitier could rescue between the old settlers of Iba?ez Step (today Commander Luis Piedrabuena) in the Province of Santa Cruz in the decade of 1930 the memory of a puppy of malvinero fox, that the crew of a lobera schooner had given to the inhabitants of the Pav?n Island in the summer of 1875. The animal would have lived until April of 1876 like domestic animal until a dusk was sent to the River Santa Cruz and did not return there to see it more.

Etoecol?gicos characteristics: It is not much what it has been possible to know on the habits of this canine intriguer and we must be satisfied to which they pointed on him the explorers and travellers who visited the malvinense archipelago. One knows that it was the only exclusively terrestrial mammal of those islands and that tussock (flabellata Poa) pleased to frequent the pajonales of grass and the marine coasts in search of carrion, seafood, nests and some possible prey like cauquenes (Chioephaga spp.) or ping?inos (Spheniscidae). One also says that it was fed on pinn?pe- two (marine wolves or seals), but creenios that was due to conform to dead or ill animals or to small young given the characteristics of both animals. In order to take shelter in the nights and the crude ones to invier to us austral they dug madrigueras between the dense pajonales. Another showy fact is great mansedumbre which they even demonstrated almost in the dawn of extenninio, after about two hundred years to know the disastrous effects its approach the man. Often the travellers confused the reasons for their approach and instead of attributing them to simple curiosity (quite habitual in the animals insulares), they thought that he was attacks that immediately forced to defend themselves originating true slaughters. They contributed to this its good size, increased still more by its long pelarnbre, that gave wolf aspect him more (Canis lupus) that of fox (consequently loaded with the "Black Legend" and hatred and the antipathy that from immemorial time that species in the North hemisphere underwent) and its custom to mobilize itself in groups, that we do not know if they were of familiar type or packs with a social but complex organization. About the name of "warrah" that writes down Darwin, two possible explanations are happened to us: or sajona of the guaran? name "guard' was a graf?a or" it will water down " whereupon it denominates the foxes in general in good part of our country, this of Paraguay and south of Brazil and that or could have subsisted in the islands from the government of Luis Vernet, who would have taken Creole Argentineans to the archipelago which logically they applied to the fox the name that they gave him in his zone of origin and which still we know that they had adopted many Spaniards for these South American animals of foxy aspect; or of simple onomatopeya of its shout which would imply two parallel ways to arrive at the same result. since one thinks that the guaran? name would be indeed also of onomatop?yico origin. About their presence in these islands, moved away about 400 km of the South American coast, have woven numerous theories: from bridges in parts of the Pleistocene (what it does not explain because other mammals (in special rodents did not arrive ", until domestic animals (domesticated foxes or dogs) taken by old natives (what as already we said it would need archaeological evidences).

Situation: The species would have been extinguished towards 1873-1876; exterminated by the Scottish cattle dealers who blamed it of predar on their ewes. In 1839, shortly after the visit of Charles Darwin in 1833, the "North American loberos" hunted them in great number by their skin of very good quality. T?ngase in account that the fueguina race of culpeo or red fox (lycoides Dusicyon culpaeus) is still the most appraised in peleter?a where distinguishes it like "fueguino fox" reason why it is not difficult to understand that something similar happened to him to the malvinera species. Single 1 1 unit stayed to us as memory of the species (none of them in Argentina), between which the obtained ones by Darwin in the trip of the Beagle are counted. Cabrera and Yepes (1940) and recently You will roll Samitier (1987) carried out a tedious historical revision on the malvinero fox that we are ourselves forced to reiterate in its more salient concepts. Its discovery would have carried out it Richard Simpson who visited in 1689 the Falklands in the British ship "Welfare" and spoke in his newspaper of trip of "twice as great foxes as in England" and commented the capture of a young unit that was thrown overboard scared by the detonations of the tubes during the first naval action. Simpson was surprised by the appearance of the fox in those remote islands and already risked: "as far as his antiquity, from the moment at which they cannot fly, nor to swim as much distance, or there have been two different creations, or America and these Islands have been formed of the same continent, that is most probable." In 1764 the Bougainville French tried the colonization of the islands finding habitually to the canine one and baptizing it "fox-wolf" or "wolf-fox". In 1765 the English Byron commented the "attack" that suffered on the part of four animals with aspect of wolves and that forced them to move away with the boat to a deeper site. Commenting which once in earth they approached from distant spot, they were forced to rnatar them and they got to complete up to five the same day. The fear of those animals took them to set fire to him to the pastizales to drive away them. Less of a century later, when Darwin visits the archipelago verifies that Byron had confused the extreme confidence of these animals with "ferocidad", and commented that she was enough to show a piece to them of meat with a hand to kill stabbing it it with the other, and that some British governors of the islands until had offered a premium by each unit, which went it quickly taking to the extinction. 1868 are known that at least three units of the species were exhibited in zoo of London in 1845, and 1870 but never were counted with a pair that allowed its reproduction. Only we would have had left of the species two embalsamados animals, six dispersed skins, eleven skulls and two jaws in museums of Great Britain, Sweden, B?lcica and the United States. The last unit would have been obtained in 1876 in the Shallow bay to the south of the island Solitude. Like corolario of the sad history of this species nothing better than to reproduce the final paragraph that Cabrera and Yepes in 1940 dedicate to him: "ahorajustamente a century ago Darwin wrote: "Before apotille the paper in which it appears the figure of this animal, is without a doubt that to include it between the species that have disappeared of the Earth face". Never there was guessed right prophecy more. The figure that the famous naturalist published subsists like memory of the existence of so interesting species; but in 1850, already one said that they were left very few units alive, and in 1876 the last one was dead ".

Texts and extracted images of the book "Those that go away: Argentine species in danger "of Juan Carlos Chebez
==========

[Keaalu]

The "foxes" of South America aren't actually foxes, mind you. They're not on the vulpine side of the family, they're closer to ordinary dogs - they called them foxes as they're small, vaguely foxish dogs. "Zorro" is more correct, as it makes the distinction between the two "types" of "fox".

There's around 8 or 9 zorro species in South America - and sadly, the only one Rangfar quoted (the Falkland Islands wolf (or "Warrah")) is the only member of the dog family to have become extinct in recent history...

There's:
Azara's zorro (Pseudalopex gymnocercus - I forget the meaning of this name, I have it somewhere though. Formerly Dusicyon),
Crab-eating zorro (Cerdocyon thous - "jackal-like dog" I think)
Culpeo (aka SA Red fox, pseudalopex culpaeus)
Grey zorro (or SA grey fox, Dusicyon griseus - "grey western dog" - (taxonomy changed now I believe to "Pseudalopex", the pseudo-fox))
Hoary zorro (Pseudalopex vetulus - an allusion to its looking old, I think)
Small-eared zorro (Atelocynus microtis)
Sechuran Zorro (Pseudalopex sechurae)
And of course the other dogs - the maned wolf, the bush dog, and the "true" grey fox Urocyon cinereoargentus - "dog with the ash coloured coat and unusual tail", so far as I can make out...

There's some degree of dispute about whether Darwin's fox/zorro is a true species ("Pseudalopex fulvipes") - it's thought to be a subspecies of the grey zorro.

Very little is known about all the different dogs of South America, probably as they're difficult to track. Those that are known about are thought to live in either monogamous pairs or small groups, like V vulpes. Most just have big red "unknown" all over their factsheets. Seeing as they're not true vulpine foxes, I'm less interested in them than I am in the little Asian foxes - V corsac, V bengalensis and V ferrilata in particular, as there's so little known about them. I'm giving all the zorros a chapter, of course, but as they're not "proper" foxes it's not going to be so in-depth... Razz.

And yes, I forgot my disk.

As an aside, if you can get to San Diego I believe they have a crab-eating zorro there. ;)

------

Edit: (Yes, Rangfar, look, an EDIT button! ;) )

Sidenote:
The last but one edition of BBC Wildlife had an article in about Maned Wolves. It was quite interesting, but probably too huge to scan in.

[Genet]

Thanks everybody! Sorry I haven't posted in a while but I appreciate all your help.

[Rangfar]

Hiyerf!

Found it, Keaalu (and the big ugly "no remote image-linking" pic dies)!!

Dogs and/or foxes, the whole South American foxes subject is certainly worthy of extensive research, and I look forward to the day when an adventurous (and somewhat wealthy) individual or team of individuals move in to get the rest of us that much-desired information!

Keaalu's right about a lot of the SA 'foxes' being more like small dogs than other species of foxes or foxlike animals, but surely there are 'real' foxes in South America, somewhere. It's a big country...and seriously unexplored in some places...

Argh! *suddenly wishes more South Americans used the internet*

Rangfar

[Keaalu]

Well, you get grey foxes in South America - in the very topmost bit, anyway, just a very short way in from the central Americas. I doubt you get vulpine foxes, though - if there were any there they'd have been seen by now, I'd imagine, since it's only really the "jungles" (for want of a better word) that haven't been well explored by science, and they're probably too damp and suitable prey too scarce for them. (Most things that live in rainforests, etc, live in the trees, after all, and foxes aren't built for climbing, like a cat is, but running. Hence why most foxes live either on grassy/desert plains or else in temperate woodland where the trees aren't so close together they're fighting for space.) Even the South American zorros live mostly on plains etc so far as I can tell.

[Rangfar]

Yip, absolutely right! But until I hear that somebody's gone through all the jungles looking for foxes and seen not one, I will still hold to that there *could* be a species of fox that nobody but the locals know anything about, living there in the deep jungles or perhaps in the remote/local mountain ranges. Probable or not (and I know pics can't really help us a whole lot because they don't really give an accurate idea of temps or humidity), look at these:

Andes:

Serra do Mar (near Paran?):

I mean, it's not necessarily likely, but I can picture a normal fox living there (now true, the Andes are rather near the top of SA---but what of the Serra do Mar mountain range? The latter is a lot more centralized, and there are even more mountains further south too). But yeah, even then we would probably not be able to find a true V. Vulpes sort of fox---at least like what we're familiar with around here---no long-haired fox, almost for sure, due to multiple reasons. ;)

I pronounce the whole topic, at least in my case, "mystifying", and because I've never been to SA and have virtually no research material related to the SA foxes (or fox-dogs), I can only speculate endlessly. I'm probably all wrong about all of it, but oh well, that's the problem with mere speculation. ;)

Perhaps no fox I know would like it here: