Red Fox

hello everyone welcome back to relax with animal facts I am staff Wolff and today I am going to be learning with you about our furry scaly or possibly even slimy friends and in today's case it is definitely going to be a furry friend of ours because we are covering the %HESITATION so wonderful red fox this is a very special listener episode dedicated to Tyler Gary Christie Chloe end to Jordan thank you all for writing and I hope you enjoy your very own episode and what a pleasure it was to research about these little creatures if you would like to request an animal and get your very own episode along with learning cool facts about a creature that you find cool yourself you can send a message to relax with the animal facts on Instagram you can also go to relax with animal facts dot com and click on the animal request tab or you can always send an email to relax with animal facts at the G. mail dot com if you love the show and want to learn about mythological animals and extinct animals and many other series to come you can go to the patriotic page relax with animal facts we just covered the Griffin and boy was that cool all of that information is in the description and I look forward to seeing you there I'm just going to say where I caught my facts from so we can get straight into the episode all of these can be found in the description or the show notes of this episode so you can feel free to click around and explore at your leisure this episode would not have been possible without their contributions and W. F. dot org Canadian geographic dot CA which as a Canadian I must say is a great website Britannica dot com wildlife online talked me dot U. K. Jackson wild dot org and at him online dot com and now we are going to slow down just a little bit and what I encourage you to do is to realize whether you are carrying a lot of tension or not is it in the shoulders is it in the head perhaps in the legs sore in the feet everybody is truly different in this regard and so what I encourage you to do is to play the part of Jello and really sell that role if it were ever possible to imbibe Jello this would be the time and so I'm going to do my best to relax right along side you we don't really need all of that tension where we are going we are tracking together into the lush green forests where the red fox resides the red phone switches also commonly referred to as the common fox is a species that is found throughout Europe Asia northern Africa and North America it takes the number one gold medal when it comes to natural distribution meaning where they are found in the expenses to where the %HESITATION found in the case of the red fox it has the largest natural distribution of any land mammal apart from you and me to be number two after human beings in land distribution is no small feat and so credit where credit is due they were first introduced to my good friends in Australia in the nineteenth century and since then they have become a very established species throughout much of the continent this I'm sure can be attested to by some of you out there who are listening from good old Australia the only thing that I know about Australia is that I was rebuked one time for daring to say Mel born I since then have changed my ways and strictly referred to it as Melbourne but today we are exploring the forests of Canada this is something of course I am very excited about today because for me it was not a very long trek to get here but Canada not only has long stretches of very cold and icy climates it also has a very wide range of completely forested areas that seem to go on and on into eternity about eighty percent of Canada is uninhabited and so today we are in one of those very forested places with trees reaching into the clouds where we can listen closely to the Russells of leaves and branches and the very soft and %HESITATION Giles steps of the red fox the scientific name of the fox is Vocus Vocus now the word full pass has been transformed a couple of times into a modern day adjective known as volt Klein so you would use this word to describe something that is fox or fox lake so if I was to say oval pine dog that would mean that my dog in some sense maybe intemperance maybe in look somehow or another is indicative of a fox species but vote passes that Latin word and is literally translated into fox said the scientific name of the red fox is fox fox so if there's ever been a fox this is most certainly one of them these are mammalian creatures meaning they are mammals they will weigh between eight to fifteen pounds that being about three point six to six point eight kilograms and will be an average length of ninety centimeters to one point two meters as we will learn later their length if their tail is taken into account is significantly longer than if their tail is not the most certainly have long and fluffy tails with the red fox also has a pretty long snout it will have read for across their back their sides their face and also their tail what would makes the fox so utterly recognizable is that they have a grayish white throat chin and belly this will be accompanied by dark black feet and black tipped ears that are large hand pointed at the end maybe the absolute primary way to tell whether something is a fox or not is that fluffy white tipped tail that comes at the very end they will be on average about two feet tall and as we learned a bit earlier about three feet long but despite those distinct markers it is important to note that red foxes or not always read there are times in which boxes of the same litter can be different colors but because of these differences red foxes are often confused with gray foxes and these two are in fact distinct they share a similar habitat and range which can surely make identifying them challenging but a really good way to tell the difference is to look simply at the color of their tail or at least the tip of the tail gray foxes will have tales that are black tipped wild red foxes will have tales that are white tips so if you're ever unsure the tip of the tail tells the story no that tail is used for a couple of things not only does it make a comfortable warm blanket when they're sleeping in which the tail is wrapped around their bodies in cold weather their tail will act as a balancing mechanism as it does in many other species and their tail is also used for communication so nearly every creature will have some modes of communication and the red fox employees their tail as a digesting mechanism so in addition to the noises that they can make to communicate their tail will play an important part along with other physical and non verbal cues one of the listeners who requested this episode for example works in a fox sanctuary and there are many videos online that you can watch and see just how the fox behaves for example when afraid they will oftentimes a grin they will use their body in such a way in order to give a sign of submission this is usually indicated with that arching of the back and bringing themselves quite low to the ground and a laying there years back so the fox is a really keen communicator even without any verbal output they can certainly make noise and communicate that way but they are great in terms of their body language those black tipped pointy ears provide the fox with a seriously acute and sensitive hearing they can detect the high pitched squeaks of mice from thirty meters away so they have acute hearing not only in terms of decibel levels or volume so they can hear things that are quiet but they can also hear frequencies that many a times will pass over our years especially from thirty meters away in addition to their very sharp years they also have sharp eyes they are adapted for some serious night vision the things that the C. R. very hi in terms of intensity and sharpness this of course plays a key role when it comes to distinguishing prey were noticing threats that maybe would not be so noticeable had they had less of an acute vision if a light is shone into the eye of a fox at night for example you will notice that their eyes will glow a greenish color and this is because there is a membrane that acts almost like a mirror behind their retinas if there was one thing that I find truly fascinating it is the I. of many creatures if you compare for example the eyes of a fox to the eyes of an eagle to the eyes of an octopus there so a truly unique to one another and the F. sport a similar level of sophistication and usefulness for the creature the complexity of this one mechanism that we can hold in our homes is one that truly ought to take our breath away we just spoke about their communication and how they combine a verbal aspect with a non verbal one the sound that you will most likely hear from a fox is a kind of scream it is supposed that the females will make this sound during mating season to attract males in the thick of brushing very large distribution I would say that screaming at the top of your lungs may be a good way to attract some attention to yourself and so it is with the red fox now when these fox pups are still young their parents will bring home for them small game and things to play with and this is the way in which the adult or parent foxes or attempting to teach their pups hello to hunt little by little and when they do hunt they often go for rodents and rabbits though they will also eat birds amphibians and even fruit red foxes also steal food from garbage cans or from different areas such as forms for example whether it is hidden deep in the borough or simply in a trash can that acts like a puzzle to dispense food once they figure it out this is what gives them such a reputation for being cunning and quick on their feet and very intelligent it is quite common in oral traditions such as in folk tales or legends that the fox will be portrayed as some sort of conning war deceitful creature they will play tricks and they will deceive to the utmost if it just means they gain a little but in reality there is something that these folklores or perhaps reading into a little bit foxes in their posture tend to be quite shy and nervous much more than deceitful and intentionally deceptive let us quickly go over just a couple of examples of foxes in folklore beginning with Greek mythology which is also a personal favorite of mine the story is told of a tail messy in fox which is a very large blood on catchable creature that plagues the CBN's as a punishment that was dictated by the colons for reasons completely unknown for those of you that know Greek mythology this is a very common theme that being this sort of all the punishment that is delivered or decreed capriciously by some sort of being that has no stake in the matter that simply wants to have fun or settle some personal score in some way now in this story when the thieves are faced with this incredibly challenging task and may be incredibly challenging is an understatement it is rather an impossible task this untouchable fox was finally pursued by a hunter that never fails so the Greeks here tell the story of what happens when an unknown catchable fox is pursued by a hunter that's never fails to catch well in this story what ends up happening is that Zeus turned them both into stone and cast them to the heavens where they formed the constellations that we know today as canis major and canis minor so this is a question that people still ask in modern times what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object and in the case of this story it is that they are both turned into stone by Zeus and traveling trust a bid for east well maybe more than a little bit we get to Japan's stories the fox of course has its intimate role in the Japanese lore and they hope I don't pronounce this wrong but the Japanese name for the fox is it soon a and the stories of Japanese mythology tend to depict them as having some sort of magical power and with the posture of deception or hunting so the fox culturally has quite a rich history and you can feel free to explore all of those other stories we were just at the tip of the iceberg now the red fox can run up to thirty one miles per hour that's about fifty kilometers an hour they can swim quite well and they can jump over six feet that might not seem like too much but that is three times their height but if we take those proportions and apply it to humans for example we can see that it would be utterly ridiculous someone who is five feet tall being able to jump fifteen feet high is not something that we would entertain in any measure of reality so the fox proportionally destroys us as a triathlon athlete and now let us move on to the final fact of the episode which is the word fox where does it come from or what does it mean it goes through pro to Germanic middle Dutch Dutch old high German Old Norse all the way to protostar manic it seems as though this word really was just transposed from a proto Germanic word by using letters in a different language to try to mimic the sound made in the proto Germanic word in other languages the word fox will often have something to do with the tail you have that in Spanish in Lithuanian for example their tail is which makes them very distinguished as creatures but this word fox really has a metaphorical connotation and was meant to describe a clever person in late Old English now let us move on to the review portion of the episode in which I read a review from a special listeners out there and today the listener Jack he fan number one road all the way from the United States of America and Jack writes I haven't watched this for long but I think it's cool one thing though the intruders are quite long and I just want to learn the facts thank you John for your wonderful review and that's really important feedback I am so glad that you found the show and that you think it is cool on our tracks we can always use more company now in terms of the intro is being quite long I would most certainly agree with you the intro is especially in the older episodes were much too long but the only reason I had it set up that way was because I thought it was the best way to do it but after some really important critical feedback I realized that it was not the way to go and so we moved for example these reviews at the end of the show and little things like that to cut down the intro I am not sure how I would trim the intro any more than it is I want to ensure that I say who this episode is dedicated to because this show is entirely for you guys and so I don't want to leave the shout out to the end for example I have to say for example where I caught the facts from because their stuff is used in the show and I must give credit where credit is very rightly do and so the intro now is something between maybe two and three and a half minutes perhaps there is a way to shorten the intro a little bit but I'm not entirely sure how to do it if any of you out there have suggestions that you believe would be beneficial in shortening the intro somehow I would be more than happy to engage with that so thank you again Chad for your review and for your important feedback it means the world leaving a review like Jack did whether it is a five star of four star a one star by leaving a review you help grow the show you help the show get better and you helped me to know what you like about the show to ensure I don't change it Chuck also wrote into the show on E. mail and said man thanks for your reproach to both ecology information pop culture and relaxation I thank you for the kind words truck and I'm very glad that you join me every week again if you would like to learn about the creature that you find really interesting you can send a message to relax with animal facts on Instagram you can go to relax with animal facts dot com and go to the animal request tab or lastly you could always just send an email to relax with the animal facts at the G. mail dot com thank you all for listening to this podcast episode I had so much fun learning about the red fox and I hope that you did as well I hope you will all join me on the next podcast episode with the next animal take care