The common red woodland fox that most of us know certainly is beautiful, but this cunning creature has managed to adapt to diverse climates throughout the world – the fennec fox of the Sahara desert and kit fox in the southwest U.S. both sport larger ears that help them stay cool in the desert, while the arctic fox has a thick and snow-white insulated coat and small ears that help it retain its body heat.
The fox is a member of the canidae family, which also includes dogs, wolves and other similar animals. After 50 years of breeding experimentation in the Soviet Union, they’ve also provided us with extraordinary insight into the domestication process. Over several generations of selective breeding (by choosing foxes with less fear of humans), Soviet scientist Dmitry Belyaev was able to breed silver foxes that began to exhibit domestic traits like floppy ears, tail wagging and spotted coats.
No matter how each fox looks, however, their wide range ensures that they have become elements of local folklore around the world. Various cultures throughout Europe, Asia and Africa consider the fox to be a cunning and sly creature that often plays the part of the trickster in folktales and myths.
