u/Silly_seal_starshine

I have always loved foxes but for a long time I only knew about a few kinds. Several kinds of foxes, like the red fox, Arctic fox and the Fennec fox are well known but there are many wonderful and less known ones! Some of the ones I hope to focus on are Blanford’s fox, the pale fox, corsac fox and the Tibetan fox! I specifically chose these ones because they are all truly foxes, some animals called foxes don’t belong to the genus Vulpes meaning they aren’t truly foxes. There are only 12 species of true foxes (if you only count ones in the genus Vulpes) meaning today you will learn about one third of all true foxes!

First, Blanfords fox, the scientific name for it is Vulpes cana. They live in dry rock mountains, which actually caused their most unusual thing! Unlike most canids, they have sharp semi-retractable curved claws and hairless footpads, almost all other desert foxes have hair on their footpads! Their very unique hairless footpads and curved claws help them climb and grip steep rock walls. They also can jump extraordinary high, nearly 10 feet! 9.8 feet to be exact. Their tail, which is, relative to its body size, one of the longest, helps them balance! Like most foxes they are omnivores and solitary but, most kinds of foxes hoard or stash food, in fact many animals do! But Blanfords foxes usually do not, this is likely because their diet mostly consists of insects and fruit. Though occasionally they do stash but much less than most foxes.

Next is the wonderful pale fox! Its scientific name is Vulpes pallida. Interestingly they rarely have to drink because they get almost all their needed water from food! In fact, they could, in theory, go their entire lives without drinking and still live to be old! They are also strictly nocturnal but surprisingly not solitary! They live in small groups or even sometimes just in a pair. Interesting they were officially data deficient for many years! In 2024 they were seen for the first time in Algeria in over 50 years! While their population estimates have a huge range, they are classified as least concern of extinction because they are assumed to be wide spread and just elusive. There are many reasons it’s hard to study them, first the desert makes it hard, second there surprisingly good camouflage, and third, they have very complex burrow systems! These burrow systems have sometimes been up to 49.2 feet long! Inside these burrows there are inner chambers that they meticulously line with dry grass and vegetable matter to keep their young cool!

Now onto the amazing Corsac fox! Its scientific name is Vulpes corsac, which is certainly one of the easier ones to remember! They are one of the more social species of foxes! They sometimes form hunting packs in winter. They are mostly nocturnal but can be awake in the day. And most unusually for foxes, they don’t defend one territory, instead they are nomadic wanderers. They aren’t very fast sprinters but they are amazing climbers! They are strictly monogamous and interestingly, it’s debated wether they mate for life or find a new mate each year. They can go for long periods without drinking water but they do have to drink it.

Last but most certainly not least is the Tibetan fox! This is my personal favorite based off looks! I recommend you look at some pictures of it! It has a wide blocky almost square face, while this might seem funny at first, it actually has a purpose! Its weird head is because it has elongated jaws to anchor its massive jaw muscles! And they form fascinating commensal hunting relationship with Tibetan brown bears. When a bear digs into a burrow to catch a pika, the fox waits patiently on the surface to intercept any pikas that try to escape out of the back exit holes! This immediately makes me think of Coyotes and badgers working together to hunt underground rodents, which is an entirely different but equally fascinating topic! (Though both coyotes and badger benefit in there’s but in foxes and bears only the fox benefits) Dietary studies on the Tibetan fox show that plateau pikas make up roughly 80% to 90% of their total diet. Their local population directly rises and falls based on how many pikas are available that year!

I hope you enjoyed and learned! After my recent post about the bush dog and maned wolf, which are both canids but not foxes (though the maned wolf is commonly wrongly called a fox on stilts) I wanted to make one about foxes! Some sources are the IUCN Canid Specialist Group, The Animal Diversity Web, and ResearchGate.

Maned wolves and bush dogs are extremely interesting animals, both of them have become moderately well known recently and as always that also led to a lot of misinformation about them! After doing two moth posts in a row I decided I had to do something else before doing another, I do hope to do another soon but there’s certainly no shortage of fascinating animals! While maned wolves will be in this post I hope to focus more on bush dogs! First of all, the maned wolf isn’t truly a wolf. It doesn’t belong to the genus Canis (which has dogs, wolves and coyotes) instead it belongs to Chrysocyon. Maned wolves are actually the only living species in Chrysocyon. They are also commonly called fox on stilts, that is also misleading. They are not closely related to foxes.

Maned wolves and bush dogs are the closest living relatives to each other but that doesn’t mean that they are extremely close. Maned wolves and bush dogs split from their last shared ancestor around 3 to 4 million years ago. To help you fully get what that means, that’s roughly the same amount of time it’s been since our ancient ancestor Australopithecus walked the earth. Many species used to sit closer to maned wolves and bush dogs but unfortunately all of the ones in between them have since gone extinct.

Their differences stand out as soon as you look at them. Maned wolves are extraordinary tall usually around three feet tall at the shoulder (maned wolves are the tallest wild canine in the world!), while bush dogs are very short usually one foot tall at the shoulder or even shorter, maned wolves are solitary while bush dogs live in packs of around two to twelve bush dogs, and maned wolves are omnivores commonly eating wolf apples while bush dogs are hypercarnivores that heavily depend on meat.

Now onto some fascinating facts about bush dogs! Bush dogs actually have partially webbed toes! That’s extremely rare in canids! They are incredibly amazing swimmers because of this! Also, they only have 38 teeth, almost all other canids have 42 teeth. And they are one of only three canid species on earth (the African wild dog and Dhole are the other two) to possess a trenchant heel dentition! This means the lower carnassial tooth has a single, blade-like cusp designed to maximize the length and efficiency of their bite. In a shockingly odd twist, they were first found as fossils and assumed to be extinct! Only several years later did people find them alive and well!

I apologize for the fact that this post hasn’t gone very in depth on anything, it’s my second one today and to be honest, I more wanted to clarify the whole related thing. To summarize it, yes they are related but distantly. The only reason they are the closest living relatives to each other is because many other species went extinct. Anyway I hope you enjoyed! As always, sources are IUCN red list, the Canid specialist group, the endangered wolf center, and Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.

Underwings are an amazing kind of moths! They mostly belong to the genus Catocala! They range a lot in sizes and colors. Their bodies typically range from under one inch to two inches, with their wingspan being between 1.3 to 4.3 inches! One of their most unusual things is actually their names! Many species have beautiful names like the Girlfriend Underwing, the Old Wife Underwing, the Newlywed Underwing, the Bride Underwing and the Darling Underwing! Though some species have sad names like the Tearful Underwing and the Inconsolable Underwing. The most amazing thing about them is actually the reason they are called underwings! When they rest, their forewings are folded similarly to a tent, with their forewings folded they look remarkably well camouflaged but when they uncover their hind wings it reveals their namesake, their beautiful hind wings! Their hind wings are colorful and patterned, they can be orange, red, pink, blue, and more! Interestingly, their color is also their defense mechanism! They aren’t poisonous, they use it to startle the predator, by suddenly showing the colors and patterns, and quickly escape. Unlike some moths (not counting any that are incapable of eating as adults) which prefer flowers, Underwings love sugary, fermenting liquids like tree sap, fruit that is ripe or decaying, and though much more rarely, nectar.

Their scientific name, Catocala is actually from Greek. Catocala stems from kato meaning behind or back and kalos meaning beautiful. Though one very interesting thing is not all underwings truly belong to Catocala. For example there is one named the Large Yellow Underwing but it doesn’t belong to Catocala, in fact it’s in an entirely different family! All true underwings are in Erebidae but it is in Noctuidae.

This is a slight detour from the topic of underwings but it’s related enough that I felt I should include it.
Moths and butterflies both belong to Lepidoptera, and when you’re doing more research into them you may get confused on what counts as a moth or butterfly. Though it seems straightforward at first some kinds make it tricky, like many jawed moths that are diurnal (active during the day) or colorful (Luna moths are nocturnal, but I feel their color can be confusing I at first, thought they were a kind of butterfly) Luna moths. There’s no one definition but instead normally three questions, first how are its antennae? (Please know, all of what I am about to tell you is just general, some moths have antennae similar to butterflies, some have very feathery ones, it’s just to generally help know. There are always exceptions though and when possible you should just do research to figure out if it’s a moth or butterfly) Butterflies have thin long antennae that end in a distinct knob, male moths usually have feathery comb-like antennae that do not have knobs, female moths have thin antennae that, like the males, do not have knobs. The second question is about wing linkage. Butterflies have independent wings their front and hind wings naturally overlap without being physically connected, most moths (not all, in fact entire families of moths don’t) have a frenulum (the frenulum is a small bristle) and retinaculum (the retinaculum is what the bristles catch to lock together) connecting their front and hind wings so they perfectly flap as one unit. And the final question is about the pupal stage. Butterflies become a chrysalis, the chrysalis is their pupal body. Moths make a cocoon, a silk soft wrapper normally hidden in leaves, then become a pupa inside the cocoon. There are, of course, some exceptions. Like the Castniidae family of moths which have clubbed antennae or the several kinds of moths that just hide underground without a cocoon!

I hope you find underwings and moths in general as fascinating as I do! Most of my sources are the same as yesterday since they were both about moths but in case you didn’t see my last one here are some great sources! AskNature, Bill Oehlke’s Underwing Moths of North America, and BugGuide. Even after making two posts about moths back to back I feel like there is so much more to say about them! As always if you are interested I encourage you to do some research on them! I’ll try to make my next one about something other than moths but no promises!