Vulpes velox

The swift fox is a small light orange-tan fox around the size of a domestic cat found in the western Great Plains grasslands of North America, such as Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. It also lives in southern Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in Canada, where it was previously extirpated. It is closely related to the kit fox and some mammalogists classify them as conspecific. However, molecular systematics imply that the two species are distinct. Interbreeding between the two species does occur where their ranges overlap, but this hybridization is quite restricted in scope.

Vulpes velox

Uncredited · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
swift foxPBDB
Sits inside
VulpesPBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Vulpes
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Vulpes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Mass
2.4 kgWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 1.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 1.4 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 4.7 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 1 of 14 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 13 of 14 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 14 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.3–4.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.2–4.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.0–3.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.8–3.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.6–3.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.5–3.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.9–2.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.8–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.3–2.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.1–1.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.9–1.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.2–1.0 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.0–867 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence867 ka–693 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence693 ka–520 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence520 ka–347 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence347 ka–173 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences173 ka–0 Mya — about 5 occurrences1.4 Mya129 ka5.2 Mya0 Mya

14 occurrences of Vulpes velox on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

14 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

"unnamed sandstone" — 33.90°N, 117.00°WKingsdown — 37.20°N, 100.30°WTurlock Lake — 37.06°N, 120.20°W

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The named rock units Vulpes velox has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Vulpes velox and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Vulpes velox and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

388 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Vulpes velox, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

12 references

Each of the 14 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Vulpes velox

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itVulpes through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Say 1823)