Red Fox use the Earth’s magnetic field to align their hunting leaps with great accuracy, then land headfirst on top of their prey.
Photo Credit: National Park Service
Red Fox
By Kevin McKeon, Maine Master Naturalist
Since mating season for our red foxes is peaking right about now, it’s a good time to learn about these rather secretive and famously cunning critters. Red fox (Vulpes vulpes) are found worldwide; humans are the only more distributed land mammals in the world. The extraordinary variabilities in shape, size, color, habits, and habitats result in the classification of at least 45 red fox subspecies. It’s the Eastern American Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes fulva) that we’ll see around here.
At only 9 to 15 pounds, our red foxes are surprisingly small, not much heavier than large house cats. Their long legs, thick fur, and bushy tails make them look bigger. Females are monestrous (come into heat and breed only once a year), and do so for only about a week, beginning at 10 months old. After about 7 weeks, the litter of 3 to 6 pups are cared for by both the “dog” (male) and the “vixen” (female) for about 3 months. This caring often involves establishing another den to avoid total offspring loss to predation. The pups begin to disperse in September, with vixen relocations averaging about 7 miles from their natal areas, and dogs about 20 miles. In the wild, they’ll live for 3 or 4 years.
Red foxes mostly form social groups of a single pair, but occasionally they’ll group together, with several vixens joining a single dog. This “Skulk” (Scandinavian, meaning to lurk or move stealthily) is often comprised of related vixens, with only a select few breeding and the subordinates helping with the pups. Breeding vixens share nursing and denning duties. Skulks form mostly where food and shelters are plentiful, commonly near suburban/rural areas, where farms and sparse housing offer habitats for mice, rats, grasshoppers, and other small prey, and forest edge habitats for denning and shelter.
Being omnivorous, red foxes’ diets aren’t too fussy. Smaller mammals, birds, squirrels, fruits and berries, and insects are all eaten, with summertime grasshoppers a favorite, and easy prey for parents to teach hunting skills. Many critters will prey upon our foxes. Owls, hawks, and eagles will grab the pups and smaller foxes, and coyotes, bobcats, and bears will nab all sizes. Hunting, trapping, and vehicle collisions are also major mortalities caused by humans. Common rat poison is also deadly, remaining deadly after its primary purpose of killing home, garden, and farm pests. The poisoned, dead pests get eaten by many wildlife critters and domestic pets, causing their death because the poison remains persistent and active. Safer, targeted rat poisons are now available.
Originally, red fox was mostly a northern United States and Canada species. Then in the 1700’s, the European invasion brought along the sport of fox hunting, and the release of European red foxes to North America caused native/non-native species interbreeding. Eventually, a rare mutation occurred. A red fox displayed silver fur. In 1910, two men brought 25 silver-furred red fox pelts to London and sold them for $1,400 each. Today, that 25 pelt sale would be a $1.2 million windfall. Thus began the Silver Fox Fur Farm boom from coast to coast in the northern states and southern Canadian provinces. Fifty years later, the market collapsed, and silver-furred foxes were released from farms to the wild, causing more inbreeding and the introduction of foxes to areas previously fox-free. This created chaos among many native species of animals, especially ground-nesting birds. This event happened mostly out west. Here in the east, the northern red fox found it advantageous to migrate south, because their natural predators, wolves and coyotes, were considered pests by human settlers and were being eradicated. This created large territories for new red fox expansion and the red foxes we see today.
Many wild critters exhibit a relationship with Earth’s magnetic field called “Spontaneous Magnetic Alignment” (SMA), and red foxes are one such species. SMA presents itself as a tendency to perceive this magnetic field and apply this sense while moving, resting, foraging, flying, swimming, etc. This magnetoreception is made possible by magnetotactic bacteria in the bodies of all kinds of critters including humans. This bacteria produces magnetite, a biogenic magnetic mineral found in the beaks and noses of migratory birds and fish. Our red fox will often use SMA when “mousing” which is foraging for mice that are under snow. The fox will travel in the north/north-easterly direction of Earth’s magnetic field, and studies show a nearly four times higher success rate when pouncing through the snowpack in this direction. And up to now, foxes are the only mammal known to use SMA to enhance foraging. But magnetite hasn’t been found in them; scientists think that foxes use SMA through their visual sense — “seeing” magnetic fields, then applying it to the final targeting of their under-the-snow prey, after using their excellent hearing to first hear the rustling mouse up to 100’ away under up to 3’ of snow! More commonly, other critters use SMA for migration, like salmon swimming back to their birth streams and pigeons to find their home roosts.
Magnetite studies in humans are new. Brain research in Alzheimer diseased patients found levels of magnetic iron 3 to 7 times higher than in non-diseased, controlled subjects. Studies also show that iron oxides like magnetite can help form protein plaques found in Alzheimer sufferers. Magnetotactic bacteria are being studied for drug delivery, targeting medicines to specific areas for treatments. These bacteria naturally gravitate toward low-oxygen environments like cancer tumors, so potent cancer medicines can be delivered accurately and safely. Eventually, cancer drugs may be able to be carried by tiny, nano-sized “fox robots” to kill the rustling cancer cells.
Safe rat poison: https://ecoclearproducts.com/products/ratx-pellets
Fox hunting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2SoGHFM18I
Pigeons: https://sanfordspringvalenews.com/out-in-the-woods-99/
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