Fennec fox

Name and taxonomy

Eberhardt Zimmermann described the species in 1780 as Canis zerda. Later authors gave it a genus of its own, Fennecus, and only in 1978 did Gordon Corbet settle on Vulpes zerda. Molecular work confirmed its place among the true foxes, despite its odd build and habits. The word fennec comes from the Arabic fanak, which probably has a Persian root.

It is one of 13 living species of Vulpes in the family Canidae, order Carnivora. No subspecies are recognised. Older lists placed it in CITES Appendix III for Tunisia under the name Fennecus zerda.

Evolution and relatives

DNA evidence makes Blanford's fox of the Middle East the fennec's closest living relative. Both belong to a group of eight desert foxes that also includes the corsac, pale, kit, Tibetan, Rüppell's and Cape foxes. All eight evolved the same kit for dry country: a sandy coat, large ears, dark-pigmented eyes and kidneys that save water. That shared kit probably arose more than once, so it reflects the desert as much as shared ancestry.

Compared with Rüppell's fox and the golden jackal, which overlap its range, the fennec tolerates harsher climate and looser sand. That gives it dunes the others cannot use.

Appearance

A female measures 34.5 to 39.5 centimetres from head to rump, and a male 39 to 39.5 cm. The tail adds 23 to 25 cm. Adults weigh 0.8 to 1.5 kilograms, less than a house cat. The shoulder stands only 18 to 22 cm high, against about 30 cm in other African foxes.

The ears reach 9 to 10 centimetres in length, and some accounts give 15 cm. They carry reddish stripes on the back, pale edges and a dense lining of hair that hides the ear canal. The coat is thick and silky, cream to sandy above and white on the face, legs and belly. Pups are almost pure white and downy. Dark streaks run from the inner eye down each side of the slender muzzle.

The nose, eyes and whiskers are black, and so is the tip of the tail and the patch over the tail gland. Thick fur on the pads lets the fox walk on scorching sand. The teeth are small and weak, and the skull carries enlarged auditory bullae that sharpen hearing. Males are slightly larger, but the two sexes look alike.

Habitat and range

The fennec lives across the Sahara, from Morocco and Western Sahara through Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Niger, Chad and Egypt to northern Sudan and Sinai. Some accounts extend the range to Kuwait and the Arabian Peninsula and south to northern Nigeria. Its largest populations live in the central Sahara. GBIF holds records from 23 countries, a count that includes zoos.

It is an animal of sand. Stable dunes with a scatter of grass, sedge and small shrubs are ideal, though it also uses bare dunes near the Atlantic coast. Rain falls at under 100 millimetres a year on the northern edge of its range and up to 300 mm on the Sahelian edge. It uses desert plants to shelter and line its den and keeps away from permanent settlements.

The desert sets hard limits. Daytime heat drives the fox underground, and the cold of a Saharan night is met by the thick coat. Where the sand is loose the fox digs a simple tunnel, and where it is firm the family builds a maze. Plants such as Aristida grass and Calligonum shrubs anchor the dunes and shade the den mouths.

Diet and hunting

The fennec is an omnivore that eats whatever the desert offers. Insects come first, above all grasshoppers and locusts. It also takes jerboas, gerbils, lizards, geckos, skinks, small birds such as larks and sandgrouse, and eggs. Fruit, leaves, roots, tubers and dates round out the diet.

In the Algerian Sahara, 114 droppings held more than 400 insects plus plant fragments, date palm fruit, and remains of birds, mammals and reptiles. Plants and prey supply almost all the water the fox needs, so it can go without drinking, though it drinks when it can.

It hunts alone at night. It listens for movement under the sand, then digs, or stalks and pounces. It can jump straight up to 0.7 metres and more than 1 m forward, which helps it catch prey. Like other foxes it buries spare food and remembers the caches from season to season.

Behaviour and social life

The fennec is nocturnal, which keeps it out of the heat and cuts the water lost in panting. In southern Morocco animals stay out until mid-morning in winter. By day it rests in a burrow. In firm soil a den can cover 120 square metres and have up to 15 entrances, and neighbouring families sometimes join their dens. In loose sand a den is a single tunnel and chamber.

The basic unit is a mated pair and their young. Pups from the previous year often stay on when a new litter arrives, so a family can hold up to 10 foxes. Each family holds a territory marked with urine and piles of droppings, and dominant males mark most. Even so, each fox hunts by itself.

Play is common, even among adults. Captive fennecs rest in contact with one another and spend much of their time in social behaviour. Males grow aggressive and mark heavily around the time a female comes into heat. Nomads say the fox is so fast and turns so sharply that their saluki hounds can hardly ever catch it.

Communication and senses

Hearing and smell are the fennec's main senses. The huge ears pick up sound through many centimetres of sand and tell apart the whines and whimpers of other fennecs. A reflective layer behind the retina, the tapetum, improves night vision and makes the eyes shine in a torch beam.

Fennecs are talkative. Adults and pups chatter, whimper, wail, growl, shriek, purr, yap and squeak. A howl is short and loud, falls in pitch and repeats many times. Rank within the family is settled mostly through play.

Reproduction and life cycle

Fennecs pair for life. Mating takes place in January and February in the wild, and captive animals mate from January to April. A female is in heat for about 24 hours. The pair may stay locked together after mating for as long as two hours and 45 minutes.

Pregnancy lasts 50 to 52 days, occasionally up to 63. The female gives birth between March and June to one to four pups, sometimes five or six. A newborn weighs about 50 grams, and its eyes open at 8 to 11 days. The male guards the den and brings food to the female through pregnancy and nursing. Both parents, and often older siblings, defend the pups fiercely.

Pups play inside the den at four weeks and outside it at five. They suckle longer than most foxes and are weaned at 61 to 70 days. They are independent at about six months and mature at six to nine months. A wild fennec lives about 10 years, and the oldest captive male reached 14.

Predators and threats

The Pharaoh eagle-owl and other horned owls take pups. Jackals and striped hyenas are reported to kill adults, though the records are anecdotal. The fox's sand-coloured coat, its hearing and the many exits of its den all help it escape. Roundworms and the parasite Toxoplasma gondii infect wild and captive foxes.

People are the main threat. Across North Africa fennecs are trapped for sale to tourists, for display, for the pet trade and for their fur. New settlements in southern Morocco have pushed the fox out to marginal ground. Roads, seismic surveys, mining and oil fields eat into the desert.

In captivity the fox is prone to canine distemper, often after the stress of capture and transport. A review of zoo deaths in New York since 1980 blamed most on tumours and infection.

Population and conservation

The IUCN listed the fennec as Least Concern in 2015. Nobody has counted the population. The listing rests on how often the fox is seen and on the fact that trappers still catch it in numbers. In southern Morocco it is common on any sandy ground away from villages.

CITES lists the species in Appendix II, so international trade needs a permit. Morocco and Western Sahara, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt protect it by law, and it lives in several reserves. Zoos breed it, and education programmes in the range countries promote it. Older assessments called it Data Deficient, and its true trend is still unknown. Trapping continues, and the low birth rate means a hunted population recovers slowly.

Relationship with humans

The fennec does no known harm to people or livestock. Even so, desert peoples trap it, and traders sell it in markets and at roadside stalls. Its charm has made it an exotic pet in Europe, North America and Asia.

Breeders take pups from the mother to hand-raise them, because a tame fox sells for more. A studbook in the United States tries to limit inbreeding. By 2020, 15 American states allowed a fox to be kept without a permit. Pet foxes fed the wrong diet grow abnormally large, and zoo foxes often pace when disturbed by noise.

The Roman poet Martial wrote of a long-eared fox kept as a pet, so the fennec probably reached Rome as an exotic. Today a fennec at the Smithsonian's National Zoo is likely among the most popular animals on show.

In culture and myth

In Algerian tradition, the fennec is the national animal. The national football team is nicknamed Les Fennecs, alongside the Desert Warriors and the Greens. Through the fox the team claims the Sahara as part of who Algerians are.

In French literature, the fox that befriends the Little Prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's 1943 novella is a fennec. The pilot in the story crashes in the Sahara, where the author himself had come down. The fox teaches the prince what friendship is worth.

In Dogon tradition, the desert fox of Mali is a trickster who brings chaos, or else a messenger of the gods. That fox is a different species, but the story suggests how desert peoples read every fox. Disney's Zootopia of 2016 gave the fennec a character, Finnick, and the anime Aggretsuko has Fenneko. A fennec was the cover animal of Ranger Rick magazine in 2000.