Page 22 - World of Animals - Issue #39
P. 22
50 fox facts
9. Most wild 12. Silver
foxes do not
see their third foxes are
birthday
A fox’s life expectancy is around black or
due to hunting and environmental grey
ten years, but in the wild they rarely
make it past three years of age
pressures such as disease.
The silver fox is a melanistic form
10. In Celtic of the red fox which means they
mythology, the are the same species, but their fur
is a different colour, They range
fox symbolised in colour from black through to
passion grey, with all shades of silver in
between. In the wild, silver foxes
The foxes beautiful red, fiery do not breed with each other,
fur was thought to represent but they have sadly been popular
passion and play. These positive in the fur trade and are bred in
connotations meant if you saw captivity for their silver fur.
a fox, either in real life or in your
dreams, it was time to put more
LEFT
passion towards achieving your 13. They are Like cats, foxes 14. They can have up
life goals, while remembering the are skilled at
importance of lightening up and essentially climbing trees to 24 siblings
having fun. cat-like and mark their Arctic foxes, on average, have around five to
territory with
ten young but when times are good and food is
11. Two thirds of dogs their urine plentiful, it’s not unusual for a female to give birth
all foxes in UK Foxes are part of the to much larger litters. They have been known to
reproduce up to 25 kits, which is more than any
Canidae family, along with
cities die each animals like the domestic other wild mammal on the planet.
year because dog, wolf, jackal and dingo.
Although foxes come from
of traffi c the canine family and are
As the population grows, so related to dogs, they have
does the amount of cars on the many cat-like features.
Just like cats, they have
road, and the number of roads vertical pupils, which helps
to drive on. A rapid increase in them see well in dark
road networks means foxes
have to take more risks when conditions. Foxes also
travelling between habitats and stalk and pounce on their
prey, they walk on tiptoes
unfortunately cars hit a large and some have retractable
number every year.
claws like cats.
15. They’ve
got whiskers
on their
ankles
Foxes have whiskers, like cats
and dogs do, but a fox’s whiskers
are longer than a dog’s and more
closely resemble those of cats. They
also have whiskers around their
ankles, which act as feelers. This
extra sense helps the fox navigate
through burrows in the dark.
RIGHT
Foxes use both their eyesight
and whiskers to navigate at night
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