This fox is recognizable by its large ears and reddish fur. The Andean regional account describes it foraging alone over a broad area.
Grayish fur covers parts of the back and shoulders, while the head and legs have reddish-brown fur. The ears are large, and the face has dark markings.
The culpeo fox lives in the Andes. At 4,500 metres in northern Chile, researchers placed 42 cameras at 57 locations and ran ten surveys from 2017 to 2019, collecting 13,618 trap-nights. Short-tailed chinchillas were mostly nocturnal, while foxes were more active during the day.
Across the year, foxes were more active by day than by night, and their activity overlapped little with chinchillas. Seasonally, foxes were mostly diurnal in summer and active across day and night in winter. Their activity increased around the first and third lunar quarters when moonlight was intermediate.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
At the northern Chile site, culpeo fox activity was more diurnal than chinchilla activity, with little overlap. Fox activity was mostly diurnal in summer and spread across day and night in winter.