Re: What is a 'Firefox'?

Greetings,
The following sites will give you some nice pictures of this bright red fox aka 
Vulpes Vulpes.
http://www.bio.metu.edu.tr/~e068698/fox.html

www.iol.ie/~nargc/TheFox.htm
www.ddgi.es/espais/iguilla.htm

Vulpes Vulpes:
APPEARANCE: They are separated with body structure, compared with wolf, jackal 
and dog. With pointed nose, wide ears in the shape of triangle, thin short
legs, long sperical body and long cylindirical tail that end is blunt; it has an 
appearance to itself. In spite of narrow long triangle ears show its skull like 
wide. The end
of nose, its libs and eyes covers are black. Front foot has 5, back foot has 4 
fingers. Its claw, sole and heels remind the dog's. There may be different 
colours.
Generally, except for the sides of mouth and stomach, they are dirty yellow or 
roan brown from the nose end to tail end. This colour may differ from light 
yellow to
red brown, also gray colour. The sides of mouth, under neck, stomach, interior 
parts of legs and tail end are white. 

HABITAT: They have lived in different envirunments. Generally they like forest, 
heather, drought surface like bushes. They live on steppe, high plateous and 
wide
agriculture areas. They have climb to 2500m of mountains. 

DISTRIBUTION: In Turkey, you coincide with fox allwhere. There are lead coloured 
foxes in neighborhood of Kars and Ardahan. In Middle Anatolia, there are
dark gray foxes and foxes that have dark colour line on back, like a cross. In 
Marmara and Aegean, light roan foxes have been found. According to geographical
regions; they show different colours and also they may show in the same region.

http://www.geocities.com/~lioncrusher/foxes/redfox.htm
Go to the above site and you will see some nice pictures of this beautiful 
animal.
The red fox has been a symbol of European literature for centuries.  He has 
appeared in countless Aesop's fables as the crafty and sly fox who always 
outwits everyone.  To an extent this is true.  The fox is very crafty; it has 
been hunted down furiously in English fox hunts, and shot mercilessly for its 
fur, and yet its numbers are not affected.  It has managed to survive quite well 
in its town and country  homes in northern Europe and North America.  The red 
fox can adapt easily and so can avoid all the problems of a social animal that 
requires a home range, like the wolf. In fact, it has taken over as top predator 
in areas where the wolf has been eradicated.  It is not affected by habitat 
destruction because it makes its home in the city very happily. They live in 
North America in Canada and the United  States, in Europe, Northern Africa, the 
Middle East, Asia, Australia, and some Pacific Islands. They are not native 
throughout most of
their range.  Red foxes were introduced to North America in the seventeenth 
century for fox hunting.  They were first introduced to the west coast, and from 
there spread westward and southward.  They interbred with native red foxes, 
which occurred only in the northeastern part of the country, essentially 
breeding out the subspecies.  They were also introduced to Australia in the 
nineteenth century to control exploding rabbit populations. 

They tend to live in a variety of habitats, but usually avoid dense forests and 
deserts.  Despite this fact, there is a population in the arid northwest region 
of India.

The red fox is the largest member of the fox family. They are incredibly varied 
in size throughout their range. Males tend to be larger and can weigh 20-30 lb 
(10 -14 kg). Their body length is 23-36 in. (58-90 cm) plus 13-20 in. (32-49 cm) 
for the tail. Height at the shoulder is 14-16 in. (35-40 cm).  Red foxes aren't 
always red, either.  They are usually a deep ruddy red with a white face and 
tail tip, and black feet and stripes down from the corner of each eye to its 
nose. The tips of the ears are sometimes black as well. However, there are 
several variations of the coat color. In addition to the red version, there is a 
"silver" phase, where the fox is basically solid black with some white grizzling 
on the back and sides.  There is also a cross fox, which is a black fox with red 
ticking.  They can also be solid black, with no ticking. Farm raised red foxes 
have even more coat variations.  Some can be pure white with some grey markings, 
and some are golden with black ticking all over.  These are not natural 
variations, and can only be seen in a fox farm. One notable aspect of Vulpes 
foxes is their eyes are slits, just like those of the domestic cat and other 
felidae cats.

June Wingert
Mad Scientist