Fennec Fox (Vulpes zerda) Fact Sheet: Taxonomy & History

Taxonomy

• Family Canidae (Asa and Cuzin 2013)
  • Tribe Vulpini
    • Foxes
  • Tribe Canini
    • Dogs
    • Wolves
    • Jackals
    • Coyotes

Synonyms

• Fennecus zerda (Stains 1975; Coetzee 1977)
• Canis zerda (Harrison and Bates 1991)
• Species synonyms: C. arabicus, aurita, brucei, cerdo, denhamii, fennecus, minimus, pygmeus, saharensis, zaarensis (Rosevear 1974; Larivière 2002; Asa and Cuzin 2013)

Common names

• Fennec fox (English) (Wacher et al. 2015)
• “Fennec” is a Latinized form of an Arabic word for “fox” (Rosevear 1974)
• Fennec, renard fennec (French) (Sillero-Zubiri 2009a; Asa and Cuzin 2013)
• Fenek, fennek, wüstenfuchs (German) (Dorst and Dandelot 1972; Sillero-Zubiri 2009a; Asa and Cuzin 2013)
• Fenec, zorro del desierto (Spanish) (Sillero-Zubiri 2009a)
• Fenek, fanak (Arabic) (Asa et al. 2004; Castelló 2018)
• Фенек (Russian) (Castelló 2018)

Other colloquial or local names

• Names given by Tuareg people (Asa et al. 2004):
• Akori
• Akorhal
• Eresker
• Ahuneski

Fossil history and evolutionary relationships

• Canid fossil record
  • Patchy in northwestern Africa (see description by Geraads 2008)
  • Presence of small fox-like Vulpes species, similar to fennec fox, during Miocene (Geraads 1997; Geraads 2008)
  • Oldest Vulpes fossils from about 7 to 10 mya (Late Miocene) (Wayne et al. 1997; de Bonis et al. 2007)
• Divergence from similar species
  • 7.4 mya (Miocene): fennec fox and pale fox (Vulpes pallida) (Leite et al. 2015)
  • 6.8 mya (Miocene): fennec fox and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) (Leite et al. 2015)
  • 4 to 4.5 mya (Pliocene): fennec fox and Blanford’s fox (Vulpes cana) (Geffen et al. 1992; Geffen and Girard 2003)
    • Coincided with formation of deserts in North Africa

Closest living/extant relative

• Blanford’s fox, Vulpes cana (Geffen et al. 1992)
  • Closely related to Rüppell’s fox, Vulpes ruppellii (Leite et al. 2015), and red fox, Vulpes vulpes (Geffen et al. 1992; Wayne et al. 1997; Duke Becker et al. 2011; Leite et al. 2015)

History

• Fennec foxes kept as pets by some Roman elite (Lewis and Llewellyn-Jones 2018)

Culture and folklore

• Mascot in northern Africa
  • Fennec fox mascot named “Labib” used by Tunisian government to increase public awareness of environmental issues (1992 to 2012) (Poirier 1997)
    • Character’s image used on billboards, bumper stickers, t-shirts, and beach-going equipment
    • Popularity compared to U.S. Forest Service’s “Smokey the Bear”
• Engineering applications
  • Design prototypes for improving traction on soft soils (e.g., space rover) inspired by fennec fox paw structure (Gendreau et al. 2015)

Television and film

• Documentaries
  • Super Cute Animals (2015) — BBC One
• Film and television
  • “Finnick”: a fennec fox character in Disney’s 2016 animated film, Zootopia (Xue 2016)
  • Fennec cartoon series (France) (1998)
    • Children’s character “Fennec” the fennec fox fights crime and solves mysteries (Mediatoon Distribution, undated)

Art

• Photography
  • Images by Bruno D’Amicis
    • Photo story: “The Plight of the Fennec Fox”
  • Images by Joel Satore
    • National Geographic’s Photo Ark

Literature

• Poetry
  • Elizabeth Arnold, “Like Water Flowing,” The Kenyon Review (Arnold 2013)
    • “The rust-white nocturnal desert fennec fox/ extended families scooting around/ some unrecognizable Mubarak-era buildings/ near the Aswan airport I saw on my way home/ for the last time with their out-sized ears—/they can hear the underground movement of prey … ”

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Canidae — foxes, wolves, dogs

Genus: Vulpes (Zimmermann, 1780)

Species: Vulpes zerda — fennec fox

Sources: Asa and Cuzin (2013)

An illustration of fennec foxes by Richard Lydekker (1916).

"Fennec and Jeroba"; Plate 15 in Lydekker's Wild Life of the World (1863).

Image credit: Made available by Biodiversity Heritage Library (contributed to BHL by Smithsonian Libraries). Public domain.