The South American foxes (''Lycalopex''), commonly called ''raposa'' in Portuguese, or ''zorro'' in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, are a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

inhabiting

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. Despite their name, they are not true foxes, but are a unique canid genus more closely related to wolves and jackals than to true foxes; some of them resemble foxes due to

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last comm ...

. The

South American gray fox The South American gray fox (''Lycalopex griseus''), also known as the Patagonian fox, the ''chilla'' or ''zorro gris'' (gray fox or gray zorro), is a South America, South American species of ''Lycalopex'' (the "false" or lesser foxes) in the Ca ...

, ''Lycalopex griseus'', is the most common species, and is known for its large ears and a highly marketable, russet-fringed

pelt A fur is a soft, thick growth of hair that covers the skin of almost all mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an ...

. The second-oldest known fossils belonging to the genus were discovered in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, and date from 2.0 to 2.5 million years ago, in the mid- to late

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Vorohué Formation of Argentina has provided older fossils, dating to the

Uquian The Uquian age is a period of geologic time (3.0–1.5 Ma) within the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs of the Neogene used more specifically with South American Land Mammal Ages. It follows the Montehermosan The Montehermosan age is a period of ...

Ensenadan The Ensenadan age is a period of geologic time (1.2–0.8 Ma) within the Early Pleistocene epoch of the Quaternary used more specifically with South American Land Mammal Ages. It follows the Uquian and precedes the Lujanian The Lujanian age is a ...

(Late Pliocene).Vorohuen (sic; Vorohué) Formation
at

Fossilworks Fossilworks was a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database, a large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world. History Fossilworks was cr ...

.org

Names

The common English word "zorro" is a loan word from Spanish, with the word originally meaning "fox". Current usage lists ''Pseudalopex'' (literally: "false fox") as synonymous with ''Lycalopex'' ("wolf fox"), with the latter taking precedence. In 1895, Allen classified ''Pseudalopex'' as a

subgenus In biology, a subgenus ( subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the ge ...

of ''

Canis ''Canis'' is a genus of the Caninae which includes multiple extant taxon, extant species, such as Wolf, wolves, dogs, coyotes, and golden jackals. Species of this genus are distinguished by their moderate to large size, their massive, well-develo ...

'', establishing the combination ''Canis (Pseudalopex)'', a name still used in the fossil record.

Species

Species currently included in this genus include: In 1914, Oldfield Thomas established the genus ''

Dusicyon ''Dusicyon'' is an extinct genus of South American canids. Taxonomy The type species is ''Dusicyon australis'', the Falkland Islands wolf. In 1914, Oldfield Thomas established this genus, in which he included the culpeo and other South Ame ...

'', in which he included these zorros. They were later reclassified to ''Lycalopex'' (via ''Pseudalopex'') by Langguth in 1975.

Phylogeny

The following phylogenetic tree shows the evolutionary relationships between the ''Lycalopex'' species, based on molecular analysis of mitochondrial DNA control region sequences.

Relationship with humans

The zorros are hunted in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

for their durable, soft pelts. They are also often labelled 'lamb-killers'. In his diary of his well-known 1952 traveling with the young

Che Guevara Ernesto "Che" Guevara (14th May 1928 – 9 October 1967) was an Argentines, Argentine Communist revolution, Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and Military theory, military theorist. A majo ...

,TRAVELLING WITH CHE GUEVARA by Alberto Granado Alberto Granado mentions talking with seasonal workers employed on vast sheep farms, who told him of a successful campaign by the ranch owners to exterminate the foxes who were preying on lambs. The ranchers offered a reward of one Argentinian peso for the body of a dead male fox and as much as five pesos for a female fox; to impoverished workers in the early 1950s, five pesos were a significant sum. Within a few years, foxes became virtually extinct in a large part of Argentina. The '' Fuegian dog'' (), also known as the Yaghan dog, was a domesticated form of the

culpeo The culpeo (''Lycalopex culpaeus''), also known as Culpeo zorro, Andean zorro, Andean fox, Paramo wolf, Andean wolf,Comparative ecology of two South American foxes, 'Dusicvon ariseus' and 'Culpaeus' by Warren E. Johnson. Doctoral dissertation. Io ...

(''Lycalopex culpaeus''), unlike other domesticated canids which were dogs and silver foxes. This means different canid species have been domesticated multiple times by humans independently.

Names

Species

Phylogeny

Relationship with humans

References

Further reading