Fox - Vulpes vulpes
The Red Fox is most commonly a rusty red, with white underbelly, black ear tips and legs, and a bushy tail usually with a distinctive white tip. Foxes leave their droppings (called scats) in prominent places, such as on stones or tufts of grass, as territorial markers. Fox scats tend to be hairy and shaped in a tapering spiral.
Anywhere. It has colonised urban areas in more recent years where it scavenges food scraps.
All year round
Gives birth and spends much of the daytime in an underground 'earth'. In urban/suburban areas, these can be under garden sheds. Foxes are omnivorous and are highly opportunistic. Prey can range in size from small insects to mice and rabbits.
Widespread and common in Britain and Ireland. There is a high density of foxes in Leicester, indeed urban fox densities can be 5 times that of rural areas.
Common in Leicestershire and Rutland.
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Species profile
- Common names
- Red Fox, Fox
- Species group:
- Mammals
- Kingdom:
- Animalia
- Order:
- Carnivora
- Family:
- Canidae
- Records on NatureSpot:
- 1502
- First record:
- 21/09/1998 (Anthony Fletcher)
- Last record:
- 15/03/2025 (Mike Smith)
Total records by month
% of records within its species group
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