A fox of Northern Hemisphere forests, grasslands and inhabited areas. It eats insects and fruit as well as small animals.
Its coat is often reddish-brown, but some individuals are silver or dark. The lower legs are commonly black.
Red foxes lift their noses to sniff towards food. They may reach forwards while extending their hind legs backwards, combining interest with a posture ready to recoil.
In Tuscany, Italy, researchers tested foxes at twenty-eight woodland-path sites during spring and summer in 2021–2023. A mesh container was left empty for four weeks, then filled with household leftovers for four weeks. The food remained inaccessible while camera traps recorded wild foxes’ responses.
With food present, foxes more often looked at the container, sniffed the air and adopted a wary stance. At more human-influenced sites, foxes initially showed more apprehensive reactions to the unfamiliar empty container, but these reactions declined with time. Interest in food and caution towards unfamiliar objects appeared together in these foxes.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
In Australia, where people introduced red foxes, they are managed to protect native wildlife. New South Wales’ official account identifies predation on ground-dwelling mammals, ground-nesting birds and freshwater turtles as contributing to regional declines and extinctions. Management focuses on reducing impacts in priority biodiversity areas.