This black fox was shot at Bassingbourn in Hertfordshire, England. It was photographed just before it was killed by a car:
It was assumed that this animal had been a fur farm escapee, for melanistic foxes are quite uncommon in the British Isles.
A DNA test was performed.
It was revealed to be an 18-month-old red fox, but its gene for pigmentation was not the same as the typical black or silver fox gene.
Its gene for pigmentation was nearly an exact match for a raccoon dog.
Most of the media attention was focused on how this animal could have been one of the Belyaev tame foxes, but that’s not what’s most interesting.
If it had been one of Belyaev’s tame foxes, then it would make sense that a tame one could have been brought into England as a pet. However, these foxes would be subject to quarantine, and there would be a record of their import. Further, all of those tame foxes that have been sold as pets arrive neutered.
This fox was a male, so it would have been mentioned if it had been neutered.
However, what’s much more interesting is the potential source for the pigmentation gene.
In profile, this fox looks really weird. It has really shaggy fur, and it has a pronounced stop.
Could it have had some raccoon dog ancestry?
Both raccoon dogs and red foxes have been bred on fur farms for decades.
Recent genetic research has revealed that raccoon dogs are actually foxes, but they are quite distantly related to red foxes, last sharing a common ancestor somewhere around 4-5 million years ago.
They are at the edge of when two species start to the ability hybridize.
However, if this gene were introduced into farmed red foxes through crossbreeding with raccoon dogs, it actually does make sense. (If it were possible.)
For decades, the Soviet Union was cut off from the West, and the main source for silver foxes was North America. Almost all silver foxes in captivity today can trace to wild population in the Canadian Maritimes.
Because the Russians were cut off, they likely were trying to do lots of things to improve their fur stock. Part of what Belyaev was trying to do was improve the fur farmed stock.
Could the Soviets have been crossing raccoon dogs with silver foxes in order to increase pelt quality and the black color?
Both male and female red fox and arctic fox hybrids– which are closer relatives than red foxes and raccoon dogs–are sterile, so if this animal is a hybrid between these two species, we have lots of questions that need to be answered.
If we occasionally get fertile raccoon dog/silver fox hybrids, then why are arctic fox and silver fox hybrids sterile?
I would be surprised if this animal had been a first cross between a raccoon dog and a red fox. If it had been, it would have had more raccoon dog ancestry than just this gene.
More genetic studies need to be performed on this fox.
We may have found nothing more than a really novel genetic mutation for melanism in the red fox than we have not seen before.
But the hypothesis that this gene could have entered the farmed red fox population through cross-breeding needs to be explored.
This unusual fox is really strange.
The DNA evidence just makes things even more intriguing.
***
Update (5/31/12) I’ve been unable to find any confirmation of the raccoon dog gene in any other source.
Therefore, I’m going to say that it’s most likely not a hybrid.
It’s just a fox with a similar mutation to those that exist in raccoon dogs.
If relevant, there are Raccoon Dogs in the UK. They are sold as “exotic pets.” And no doubt escape occasionally.
Elizabeth
That’s very interesting. Someone just left a comment on the blog today that they saw a raccoon dog in the United States. I wonder how it got there!
I don’t know if these two species can cross or not. I’ve perused the literature and cannot find anything.
This is just bizarre.
Maybe they meant a Coon Hound? :)
http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/list/3363/other-pets.html?keyword=raccoons%20for%20sale
and
http://quarantine-uk.co.uk/available.aspx
Raccoon Dogs, not Coon Hounds.
Elizabeth
OMG,
You better hope those raccoons and raccoon dogs don’t get loose.
It’s almost impossible to own a raccoon or fox in most of the states here.
exactly,,,I have been tryen for almost 8 years now in the united states.Unless u have alot of money,u r not getting one in the u.s.a….part of the issue is the 90 days,3mnth old rule in engand about rabies shots.So u will never be able to get one at 2 weeks old,imprint u as mama,,,,,u have to wait 3 month before they can get on a plane,,,,paita
It would be very, very unusual that raccoon dogs would interbreed with foxes in the wild.
Only a single arctic fox/red fox hybrid has ever been documented in the wild.
My guess is this animal escaped from some captive breeding facility.
There is mention of this animal possibly having offspring. That means it wasn’t neutered, and that means it can’t be a Belyaev fox.
All the ones exported as pets are neutered before being sent off.
So you think this animal came from some experimental breeding facility?
Elizabeth
Maybe not experimental breeding facility, but research institution that was keeping colonies of black foxes for whatever reason.
It may have come from an exotic pet breeding facility, but I don’t know if people are selling pet foxes in England, unless they are fennecs or arctic foxes.
There are some people selling them as pets:
http://flashmanfoxes.webs.com/apps/faq/
This breeder doesn’t sell reds but does say they are available.
Quite curious. I wish they would release some more specifics about the DNA similarities.
I do, too!
Now retrieverman, is this one of your pranks? Like that squirrel?
No, it’s not.
The more you follow these things, the more plastic genetic material and species seem… there is a lot of flexibility for life to go on -even when a species is mostly lost except by recombining with another ‘species’ dna. This is so awesome…
Beautiful little animal. Too bad they shot it.
It was hit by car. My original post said it was shot. I was wrong.
or it’s a case of an artificially introduced gene like the genetically modified sheep (http://digitaljournal.com/article/323670) or glowing goldfish. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. It’s the next logical step for obtaining desired characteristics in livestock.
If true, then it would mean that the Soviets were more technologically advanced than we suspected.
I’ve not read of anyone doing this kind of research on foxes or other furbearers.
Any fox that have been raised in captivety is likely to act “quite tame”
And any fox from a fur farm is also likely to have “particularly thick fur”.
I mentioned before, my 25 year old granddaughter says she saw what was either a racoon or a racoon dog as she drove past it one night along a road through woodland about 20 miles from London at a beauty spot called Burnham Beeches. We do have private wild life collections of course so maybe it was from one of these – Racoon dogs are reported to be getting closer as they spread across northern europe but twenty miles would be a big ask for them to swim!
I’ve had two sightings myself of a melanistic red fox near here at Beacon hill on the Chequers estate in the Chilterns and my opinion is that the fox in your photo was also a melanistic red fox in winter coat, simple as that. However I must admit the one in the photo seems fractionally darker than those I saw at Beacon Hill. Mine had jet black legs but very slightly lighter body coat; again it was winter but in clear morning light so I had a good view of it each time.
But all things are possible of course. I’m not aware of foxes being ‘farmed’ in Britain these days – unless anyone knows better on that?
Just a minute – the black fox in the photo has a definite white tip to its tail, which I think would be unusual for a melanistic red fox, so who knows, options open I think…?!
although maybe not so unlikely
Is this web page accurate? http://www.pawsforwildlife.co.uk/silver_fox.php
I was searching for black fox in UK and found this too: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2984313/Unlucky-rare-black-fox-spotted-in-Britain.html
This black fox seen in Colorado has that same dog-like build…http://wildobs.com/adam_jack/4071-Black-Fox2
I have a friend who has a border collie that is all black except one splotch of white on her paw and she has a similar look.
No fur farms in UK nowadays. None at all. So it isn`t an escape from one.
Very odd profile for a red fox.
Elizabeth
There would be records of an import from Russia.
So how it got there is a very good question.
I am sure there are still some fur farms strains being kept by “exotic pet” breders / collectors
Trading & smuggling exotic pets is not very unusual. In small countries like Finland, even authorities are worried about that . So think again. And sterilizing ? Well, my close friend adopted a Laika from Estonia, and it’s promised every dog leaving the pet home is castrated. But this Laika – he still has his two balls !
enlace
Saludos.
Well I do not think it likely that it is a hybrid, its more likely that it is a normal fox with “funny” fox genes. When more serious scientific paper is written about it then “BBC” news etc then mabe I would convinsed.
I have some skepticism about it, too, but if it’s revealed to be an endemic red fox gene, then raccoon dogs can’t be classified as basal canids anymore. They are vulpini.
I agree, if that animal carry genes from a hybridization with a racoon dog, let alone be the fertile results of such a mating, it probably would require some reworking of the family tree.
However, I do not really think that it is the way it is described, I do not think this animal is so interesting at all. Not even that it is so interesting that it is one of the domectiserade Russian foxes.
The way that those Belyaev foxes have been milked for theory–often quite unsubstantiated– makes them far less interesting to me than you might expect.
The biggest obstacle to this being a crossbreed is that arctic foxes and red foxes can interbreed but don’t produce fertile offspring.
I don’t know if anyone int he British media bothered to look that up, but even if raccoon dogs are foxes, they are more distantly related to red foxes than arctic foxes are.
Lot of interesting fox talk emerging here.
Every now and then in Britain we get items on tv news and in local papers about some human/ fox interface.They happen all the time especially since so manyfoxes live in and around urban areas to here. Most people seem to love this wild connection but some do not.
Some years ago people in this village, including us, would walk to the house of Valerie and Tom who every evening one summer would feed a fox in their front garden much to the amusement of the crowd of villagers gathered to see the spectacle. Valerie and Tom owned a sheltie which was superficially a little bit like brer fox. The interesting thing is that fox and sheltie seemed to be more or less friends and they would eat together from the scraps put down. Sometimes the two would get a bit nose to nose and then the fox would suddenly seem to realise he was out of his comfort zone and jump back startled, only to creep back after a few seconds to resume the interface.
It’s unfortunate but these fox/ human love affairs often seem to end up with something bad happening to brer fox. In this case a lady living a few doors up from Val and Tom had a couple of cats and the by now almost tame fox would sometimes wander over to vist this house too, whereupon the cat owner panicked thinking her moggies were about to become fox food, which was ridiculous as fox meeting cat normally results in a harmless stand off.
Anyway the panicky cat owner overreacted and called the RSPCA; an inspector called, brer fox easily tempted into a carrying cage was driven away – we hope to be released in a nearby wood, but all the local kids suspected maybe the RSPCA had done brer fox in. Let’s hope not, after all it is supposed to be an organisation to “protect” animals not destroy them. It’s just that a domestic animal would rate higher maybe.
Possible to contact Helen MacRobie at Angia Ruskin University and simply ask her about what she found?
Eizabeth
Sorry, Anglia Ruskin. Just a typo
It’s now perfectly evident from that link to the exotic pet breeders that the breeding and selling of racoons and racoonlike dogs is an ongoing activity in Britain, so no surprise that my granddaughter saw one on that particular evening, but was it racoon or racoonlike dog, we’ll probably never know. But thanks for the the research.
Helen McRobie is studying the genetic basis of melanism in squirrels and is invoved in the Black Squirrel Project . I guess that`s why she picked up on the genetic anomaly.
Elizabeth
This is really interesting, as both myself and my husband have seen “creatures” that seem to be some sort of cross between a fox and what can only be described as a Raccoon I have seen one while dog walking in the Thaxted area, and my husband has seen two near Great Dunmow. They look like foxes, but have white stripes on black faces, and white stripe down tail, and very large ears.!!
Julia, I’ll bet my pension that you saw a racoonlike dog (I think that is the official name rather than a description incidentally) Suggest you check out a photo of one of these to settle your mind on the subject. Let us know what you conclude.
Just an anecdotal account of something I observed when the very last fox hunt passed by the bottom of our drive in 2004. A young man was sitting on his horse blowing one of those hunting horn things for whatever reason at the edge of the wood opposite. The hilarious thing was that a fox was sitting right beneath his horse. I guess it was disorientated and terrified so not funny really.
I said something pointless to the huntsman, like “leave that animal alone” whereupon the young man looked down saw his would be quarry unexpectedly close and almost fell off his horse as the fox ran back unharmed into the wood. That was the very last foxhunter I ever saw around here, out with the Aylesbury Vale hunt for the final time (in this village anyway) The hunts are more the hunted nowadays constantly spied upon by the anti hunters with their cameras and video recorders. The sport is all theirs now, it seems. Situation reversed as it were.
I googled ‘racoon dog’ and among other interesting stuff there was an hilarious video clip of what looked like a great dane allowing itself to be ‘beaten up’ by an obviously tame racoon dog which had this complicit dane in a headlock. So funny to see these two different species having a ‘play fight’. I would guess that having been farmed for several generations in Russia some of the racoon dogs must have mutated into a gene for tameness.I imagine that tame ones would be the favourites to be selected for further breeding rather than become used to make fur coats. And the fact that here in England racoon dogs are being advertised as pets tends to confirm that some are tame. Well, as a boy I had a tame polecat (or ferret) as did my mate Roy across the road. So if that unlikely animal can be tamed I suppose almost anything can.
checked again and actually the animal described in the heading for the clip as a “racoon dog” is actually a racoon. Still funny though!