Whether it emerges with dinner in its mouth depends largely upon a previously unsuspected variable: magnetism.Ī Czech study in 2011 observed 84 foxes hunting rodents over varying locations and times of day for 2 years.

If the snow is deep it lands head first, up to 16 ft from where it launched. When location is pinpointed, they take a flying, high-arcing leap, steering with their tails on the way down with literal on-the-fly calculations being made to compensate for wind, distance, speed/trajectory of prey, and depth of snow. They are first alerted to their prey’s presence by sound.

Watching them hunt for rodents in deep snow is a true spectacle of nature. In fact the red foxes’ high-frequency sensitivity is comparable to domestic dogs, and at the low-frequency end to that of cats, making their absolute hearing range perhaps the greatest of all mammals. Red fox have extraordinary hearing that can pick up low-frequency sounds, like nibbling rodents, and high-frequency sounds, like the squeak of a mouse, under even several feet of snow. This consequently means red fox are more day-active in the winter as well, for whom even deep snow is no deterrent. The small rodents that make up a large portion of a red fox’s diet (meadow voles and mice primarily) tend to be more active during the day in winter, feeling safe in their tunnels under a thick blanket of snow. Red fox here today are some combination of the descendants of those European red fox and the expansion of native North American foxes following the large-scale conversion of forest to agricultural lands by European migrants. This sour grapes behavior led to the import and release of “Old Word” red fox into East Coast forests. Using it’s tree climbing ability it would make the hunting hounds drop its scent and the horse-bound sportsmen would go home empty handed. It seems the native fox species to our region, the somewhat smaller and shier gray fox, wasn’t playing fair. So where did they come from? The most popular version of their arrival has everything to do with aristocrats and their fondness for fox hunting. They would not become common along the East Coast until the mid-1800s. Before the mass arrival of Europeans to the “New World” in the 1600’s, red fox were native only to boreal and western montane portions of North America. The natural history of the red fox is, in a word, complicated.

Our red fox veers from its European counterparts by having a stumpier snout, wider feet, and longer fur. Along with coat color, variation between subspecies includes morphology (body shape), behavior, size, hunting habits, and habitat requirements. Vulpes vulpes fulva is the subspecies that occupies the northeast, and is just one of nine subspecies of red fox in North America. They are so variable across their expansive range that red fox have been divided into no fewer than 45 subspecies. This seems like a lot of variation for a single species - and it is.

There is also an all black fox, while the so-called silver fox has a black coat but with silver tipped guard hairs, and on it goes. The melanistic and majestic cross fox has a black face, a mixed red/orange coat, and conspicuous black stripes down their backs and shoulders. Fox coats are often darker at higher latitudes, with winter coats both darker and thicker. Their dominant coat color is typically, and this time not surprising to anyone, red - with black legs and ears, and a white belly and tail tip. Large house cats tip the scales with more consequence. Males, or “dogs”, average about 11 lbs and females (vixens) 9 lbs. Even though it is the largest member of the “true foxes”, it is surprising to most just how diminutive red fox actually are. It has established itself world-wide, having the largest distribution of any land mammal - humans being the only exception. Legendary for their cunning cleverness, red fox are equally at home in the trackless wilderness as they are in a tract-housing development. The Red Fox of the Northeast: Vulpes vulpes fulva

Red fox running