Good News For Cozumel’s Elusive Dwarf Fox
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
It's one of the rarest canids in the world, and nobody had seen the creatures in more than two decades.
When reports surfaced on social media that a small, disoriented fox had been spotted on the Mexican island of Cozumel, Rafael Chacón - a wildlife photographer and conservationist - grabbed his camera and headed toward the creature’s last-known location.
When he arrived, he was astonished to find he was looking at a rare and elusive Cozumel dwarf fox. Roughly the size of a small house cat, the creature had a long tail, large erect ears and soft fur that ranged in color from gray to gold to white. “Seeing this fox standing there, calm and beautiful in its natural habitat, felt almost unreal,” he tells Smithsonian magazine. “The moment … was truly unforgettable.”
It was the first time anyone had ever photographed one of these enigmatic foxes, and the first confirmed sighting in more than two decades, say Chacón and other scientists in a new study. Sightings are exceptionally rare - the last confirmed observation, until now, was in 2001 - and the only physical evidence of the creatures comes from 500 to 1,500-year-old remains excavated from Maya archaeological sites.
Gray foxes - Urocyon cinereoargenteus - have lived on Cozumel for thousands of years and, over time, have evolved to become smaller versions of their mainland cousins. “Virtually nothing is known about this population, and no species-specific, systematic survey has ever been conducted,” the researchers write in the study. “However, it is considered critically endangered by scientific consensus and likely on the brink of extinction.”
“This is one of the few large terrestrial mammals and the only carnivore I am aware of that has never been adequately described and for which no genetic data has ever been produced,” says Benjamin Sacks, an ecologist at the University of California, Davis.
So, thanks to Rafael Chacón and his colleagues, the Cozumel dwarf fox looks set to be properly researched and documented in an effort to support this rare canid and to ensure its survival.
