Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes): Facts, Diet, Habitat and Lifespan

What does a red fox look like?

A typical red fox has a rusty orange-red coat, a white chin, throat and chest, black “stockings” on its lower legs and black backs to its large, pointed ears. The long, bushy tail, called the brush, is more than half as long as the head and body and often ends in a white tip. Its amber eyes have vertical, slit-shaped pupils.

Despite the name, not every red fox is red. Three main color forms occur in the wild: the usual red form, the “cross fox”, which has a dark stripe down the back and another across the shoulders, and the silver or black fox, which is melanistic (darkly pigmented). All are the same species, and different colors can even turn up in the same litter. Foxes molt once a year, starting in spring, and grow a thicker, silkier coat for winter.

How big is a red fox?

Red foxes vary a lot in size across their huge range. Foxes in the far north tend to be largest, while the small, pale foxes of the deserts of North Africa and Central Asia are the lightest. Males (dogs) are typically 15–20% heavier than females (vixens).

Most adults weigh well under 10 kg (22 lb). A red fox looks about the size of a small to medium dog, but it is much lighter, with a slim build and light bones. That makes it nimble: red foxes can clear fences more than 2 m (6.5 ft) high, and they swim well.

Habitat and range

The red fox has the largest natural range of any wild member of the order Carnivora, covering nearly 70 million km² (27 million sq mi). It lives throughout Europe, in Africa north of the Sahara, across most of Asia except the far southeast, and over most of North America apart from much of the southwestern United States and Mexico. It reaches north to the Arctic Circle.

European settlers released red foxes in Australia in the 19th century, and the species spread across most of the mainland. There it has become one of the most damaging invasive predators, linked to the decline of small and medium-sized native mammals such as bilbies, bettongs and numbats, and it appears on the list of 100 of the world’s worst invasive alien species. Red foxes are absent from New Zealand, where importing them is banned.

Across this enormous area, scientists recognize around 45 subspecies. Genetic studies show that North American red foxes have been separated from Old World foxes for hundreds of thousands of years, and some researchers argue they deserve to be treated as a separate species, Vulpes fulva. For now, most authorities still class all red foxes as one species.

Red foxes prefer a mix of cover and open ground: woodland edges, farmland, heaths, meadows, tundra margins, mountains up to about 4,500 m (14,800 ft), semi-deserts and towns. For more detail, see where do foxes live?

Diet and hunting

Red foxes are omnivores and opportunists. More than 300 animal species have been recorded in their diet, but the staples are small mammals: voles, mice and, where they are common, rabbits. They also eat birds and eggs, beetles and other insects, earthworms, carrion and plenty of fruit, from blackberries to apples and plums. An adult needs roughly 0.5–1 kg (1–2 lb) of food a day and buries any surplus in shallow caches to dig up later. The full menu is covered in what do foxes eat?

The red fox’s best-known move is the “mousing pounce”. The fox stands still, swiveling its ears to pinpoint the rustle of a vole hidden in grass or under snow, then springs high into the air and lands front feet first to pin its prey. In one study in the Czech Republic, pounces aimed roughly toward the northeast were far more successful than those in other directions, and the researchers suggested foxes might use Earth’s magnetic field to judge distance. That idea is still unconfirmed.

Behavior and communication

Red foxes are not pack animals. They usually hunt alone, but a family shares a territory: a breeding pair and sometimes one or more non-breeding helpers, usually daughters from the previous year that help raise the new cubs. Territories are marked with urine, droppings and scent from glands. In good habitat a home range covers about 5–12 km² (2–5 sq mi), while in poor habitat it may cover 20–50 km² (8–19 sq mi). Foxes in leafy suburbs can manage on far less.

Red foxes are mainly active at night and at dawn and dusk, which is why they appear in our list of nocturnal animals. Where they are left undisturbed, they are often seen by day.

Foxes are surprisingly vocal. Researchers have described a dozen or more distinct calls, including a run of three to five barks heard most often in winter, the eerie scream of vixens in the breeding season and a rattling “gekkering” made during squabbles. Body language with the ears and tail, and scent marking, carry the rest of the message. Their hearing is especially sharp for low-frequency sounds such as small rodents moving.

Dens, mating and cubs

Red foxes breed once a year. Mating takes place in winter: from about December in the south of the range to as late as April in the far north. After a pregnancy of 49–58 days (about seven to eight weeks), the vixen gives birth in spring in an underground den, called an earth. This is often an enlarged rabbit burrow or a spare corner of a badger sett.

A typical litter has four to six kits, though litters of up to 13 have been reported. Newborn kits weigh about 56–110 g (2–4 oz) and are blind, deaf and covered in dark brown fur. Their eyes open at about two weeks, they first venture out of the den at three to five weeks, and they are weaned at about six to ten weeks. The male brings food to the vixen while she stays with the kits, and later both parents, along with any helpers, feed the growing family.

By autumn the young foxes leave to find territories of their own. Most settle within a few tens of kilometers, but some travel much farther: one young fox was recorded moving 320 km (200 mi) in less than a year. Foxes can breed in their first winter, at about 10 months old.

How long do red foxes live?

Most wild red foxes live only 2–5 years, and the average is around three. Many die in their first year, often on roads. In captivity, protected from traffic, disease and food shortages, red foxes have lived to about 15 years.

Predators and threats

Adult red foxes have few natural predators. Wolves, coyotes, lynxes, cougars, bobcats, bears and golden eagles occasionally kill them, while eagles and eagle-owls take young kits. Larger canids are a particular danger: gray wolves and coyotes often kill foxes that stray into their territories, usually without eating them.

People are the main cause of death. Foxes are killed by road traffic, in pest control, by hunting and for fur. Disease matters too, especially sarcoptic mange, a skin disease caused by mites, which can wipe out local populations. The red fox was historically the main carrier of rabies in Europe, but oral vaccine baits dropped across the countryside since the late 1970s have eliminated fox rabies from much of Western and Central Europe.

Conservation status

The IUCN Red List classifies the red fox as Least Concern, with a stable population. It is abundant across a vast range and has gained ground in many places as farmland and suburbs have spread. A few distinctive local populations are rare, however. In the United States, the Sierra Nevada red fox population of California’s high mountains is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Red foxes and people

Foxes have a long history in folklore as clever tricksters, from Reynard the Fox in medieval European fables to the shape-shifting kitsune of Japanese legend. Red foxes have also been central to the fur trade, and silver foxes became the basis of fox farming. In 1959, scientists in the Soviet Union began a long-running experiment that bred farmed silver foxes for tameness alone; after many generations, some of these foxes developed floppy ears, curly tails and dog-like friendliness.

Urban foxes are a familiar sight in many European cities. Red foxes began moving into British towns in the 1930s and are now common in places such as London, Bristol and Dublin. City foxes live at higher densities and in smaller territories than country foxes, eat more scavenged food and still catch plenty of rodents, insects and birds. They sometimes take unprotected poultry, but they rarely pose any danger to people.

A few myths are worth correcting. A screaming fox is not usually hurt; it is calling to other foxes. Foxes do not hibernate and keep hunting all winter, even under deep snow. And although they belong to the dog family, foxes are not a kind of dog and cannot interbreed with dogs.