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Stuff you may not know about foxes
15 years ago
Just some rambling here...
You'd think as one of the (if not the) most common/popular furry species, people would know a bit about foxes. A surprising number of people don't know much about them at all. Here are some facts about foxes that may or may not surprise you:
- Unlike dogs and wolves, foxes do not snarl. Their defensive pose is also different, flattened and more resembling a hissing cat rather than making the familiar dog/wolf defensive stance. They also never wag their tails unless they are raised in captivity.
- Foxes don't make cute little puppy noises. Their barks are more often harsh and throaty, and of course there is the infamous 'screaming' noise the vixens make during mating season that sounds like someone being murdered. The 'fox purr' occurs only in domesticated foxes and is extremely rare. Fennecs make a horribly ear-splitting squeal when excited or agitated.
- Foxes actually smell really bad, due to a pungent scent gland they use to mark their territory. The smell has been compared to that of a skunk, although they are unable to spray like skunks. Fox dens smell terrible.
- Despite being canines, foxes have slit pupils and retractable claws, like a cat.
- The 'red' fox comes in many different colour phases. The 'silver fox' is one of the more well known, and it can vary from silver to black, based on the ratio of white hairs to black hairs. This is not to be confused with the grey fox, which is a separate subspecies and is not a red fox.
- Arctic foxes definitely are NOT just a white version of red foxes. Compare this arctic fox with the red fox. It's a different subspecies, and the arctic fox is notably stubbier in appearance than the red fox, especially in its tiny muzzle and ears. Also, the white coat is actually its winter coat...it has a summer coat, which is brown, blue, or sometimes black.
Study your favourite animal!
You'd think as one of the (if not the) most common/popular furry species, people would know a bit about foxes. A surprising number of people don't know much about them at all. Here are some facts about foxes that may or may not surprise you:
- Unlike dogs and wolves, foxes do not snarl. Their defensive pose is also different, flattened and more resembling a hissing cat rather than making the familiar dog/wolf defensive stance. They also never wag their tails unless they are raised in captivity.
- Foxes don't make cute little puppy noises. Their barks are more often harsh and throaty, and of course there is the infamous 'screaming' noise the vixens make during mating season that sounds like someone being murdered. The 'fox purr' occurs only in domesticated foxes and is extremely rare. Fennecs make a horribly ear-splitting squeal when excited or agitated.
- Foxes actually smell really bad, due to a pungent scent gland they use to mark their territory. The smell has been compared to that of a skunk, although they are unable to spray like skunks. Fox dens smell terrible.
- Despite being canines, foxes have slit pupils and retractable claws, like a cat.
- The 'red' fox comes in many different colour phases. The 'silver fox' is one of the more well known, and it can vary from silver to black, based on the ratio of white hairs to black hairs. This is not to be confused with the grey fox, which is a separate subspecies and is not a red fox.
- Arctic foxes definitely are NOT just a white version of red foxes. Compare this arctic fox with the red fox. It's a different subspecies, and the arctic fox is notably stubbier in appearance than the red fox, especially in its tiny muzzle and ears. Also, the white coat is actually its winter coat...it has a summer coat, which is brown, blue, or sometimes black.
Study your favourite animal!
Ugggh, thank you! And yes, Fennecs kill your ears :C
Im lazy otherwise.
THANK YOU.
SCIENCE!!
Here is a video with their calls as well to help with your facts :3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxLH.....os=WcHY1dklzO4
I've seen maybe ten or so foxes at other times growing up in the country and they are pretty skittish and make some goooood awful noises. I spent like 2 hours chasing one around in the woods one night, a female who was making those screeching groaning noises and I was trying to figure out what it was, pain in the butt to track down.
Very few animals have much truth in their reputation. opossums are mean as crap, armadillos are not cute or fuzzy and cant dig into the earth instantly, raccoons are very dirty looking and often lack patches of fur for some reason, snakes aren't terrible and some wild species just dont mind you after you pick them up and hold them, etc.
everything you ever wanted to know about foxes, and more XP
But yeah, it's one of those It Just Bugs Me things about the fandom, haha.
Foxes smell ALLL the time
good stuff to know
Thank you for expanding my knowledge bank! :D
But yeah.. foxes small so rank. D8
I've only ever seen a fox once, running across a freeway at night. Would love to get a chance to smell one, just to know if they really are as stinky as I've heard.
Hyenas are not dogs
Hyenas are not cats
Hyenas are closely related to the Mongoose.
They are not strictly scavengers
They don't thieve any more than lions or other animals in their environment.
I honestly need to learn more about my species... that I haven't decided upon yet yay lazyness<<
also apparently the coloration on my fursona isn't possible in natural horses >< didnt realize that
Am I weird for liking the sound they make? O.O They also sing and make a purr-like sound :3
Meaning that they are officially not classified as canine or feline but an animal all their own.
Can also be worded like this (taken from Wikipedia coz I'm not so good at explaining taxonomy): "The Canidae family is divided into the "wolf-like" and "dog-like" animals of the tribe Canini and the "foxes" of the tribe Vulpini."
IIRC from my 9th grad biology class...
the bottom three rungs of the classification tree are Family, Genus, and Phylum, so the name for the red fox from the family down would be Canidae Vulpus vulpus
also sometimes I can't find jack on how an animal acts :I is there a reliable source for this stuff
Also, when it comes to anthropomorphic animals, basically they are anywhere from 1% to 99% human in their thoughts/behaviour/habits by definition...so it's really up to artistic interpretation how much they are like the animal and how much they are like a human, and you draw the line wherever you like. See also the [urll=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p.....rphism]Sliding Scale Of Anthropomorphism[/url] on TV Tropes. :3
As for researching your species, I didn't do a ton of research on rats before picking it. It kinda just came to me and the wings came from a dream that I still vividly remember. But I enjoy rats and mice and gerbils and such so...
Castrate a lion, an it's mane will fall out!!
Rats are nice and clean, and can be very friendly. Iknow a friend who's trained his Rat. They're quite intelligent for rodents. Mice are dumb. D:
Only one species of fox climbs trees, the grey fox. It is really good at it. The rest are dirtfoxes.
I have a bad habit of studying creatures in depth before playing them online. Right now I am studying ringtails of the bassariscus astutus type. If you look at the wiki page, it is pretty bare. The mystery of them is making me even more curious. Why is there such a lack of information? CONSPIRACY!
And foxes ARE CATDOGS! Those crazy scientists in New Mexico made them during the 1950's atomic testing, then retconned history. I read it on the internet, so it's true!
I took a fair lot of time to research the fox before deciding upon it, although, I did already love the animal having had a fox earth near to our house and getting to watch (and unfortunatly hear) them.
That said, I have to admit that, in my time in the fandom, I have turned over to the cutesy side a little bit...
I knew a few, though I did not know about the snarl/defense pose or the claws.
Being owner of like a lot of fox characters though, I'd rather keep them fictional than realistic in some bits, like smell. :P
Thanks again!