Did you know that a fox’s tail is called a “brush”?

There are 12 species of fox, but 37 different dogish animals are called fox. But somewhere along the line we figured out what true fox is, and there are only 12 of them. These are member of the genus “Vulpes.” Vulpes is Latin for … wait for it … fox. Something that is fox-like is “vulpine.”

What does the fox say? They bark (sort of), scream, and sometimes they howl.

Here’s a red fox screaming. May not be work safe, depending on where you work:

In the case of the television network, FOX, the fox says “bla bla bla” and no one quite knows why. Or what it means.

A Russian scientist named Belyaev ran a series of experiments that included breeding foxes that had somewhat tame behavior (i.e., the pups tended to bite less) and in so doing invented a dog. It wasn’t really a dog, but it was dog like in some interesting ways, and it barked more.

In popular culture, of course, the fox does this:

Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:

In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
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