A visitor has recently come by my neighborhood, and I’ve snapped a few pictures. What kind of creature is this? When he walks, he (or she?) looks (to me) like a coyote, but when he sits, he looks like a fox. My wife, whose graduate degree is in biology, is as stumped as I am. And they call biology a science!
Ordinarily, of course, I’d ask my government for help, but they’re shut down right now, so I’m forced to rely on the charity of my readers. Can you identify this fellow?
(More pictures under the cut.)
Fox with mange.
This is a Fox.
If you look about half way down in this site:
http://www.nfws.org.uk/mange/mange01.htm
they do look similar.
It may also explain its sudden appearance:
“A fox suffering from mange will often act abnormally. It’s fear for humans often appears lost. It will walk around almost aimlessly during daylight hours constantly biting and scratching at the irritation”
The site suggests homeopathic treatment, which is interesting.
A fox. Looks like a juvenile, hence the gangly appearance.
It’s clearly a government experiment that escaped from a lab after all of the security personnel were furloughed.
Try to pet it, if it doesn’t run away and bites you, it’s probably a rabid fox.
Thanks to Eric Crampton for correctly identifying the animal as a fox with mange, and to Harold for providing more information. I had indeed noticed the animal scratching a lot, but had assumed this was normal. I’d also been struck by its apparent lack of fear when I approached, which I did not then know is also a symptom of mange.
I learned from Harold’s link that mange is quite a horrible thing for a fox to have, so I called the local animal control officer, who reported that the fox in question is no longer with us. “I’ve been chasing after him for a month or so and caught up with him this morning”, he said. He also said I was the sixteenth person to phone in a report.
“It will walk around almost aimlessly during daylight hours constantly biting and scratching at the irritation”
For a moment I thought I was on the shutdown post and Harold was taking a shot at the GOP
Maybe it’s a “fox-wolf” … half fox, half wolf
A mangy rabid fox. If you see a fox in daylight without binoculars, it is sick.
Call Cathleen Sibelius.
“the local animal control officer” not a Federal government employee? Or merely an essential one?
Steve, is “no longer with us” a euphemism for dead, or is it just no longer in the neighborhood?
Relatedly is the age old question of what sound does a fox make? These guys seek to answer it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE
You might delete this comment for being impertinent, but that would be the biggest tragedy anyone could ever imagine.
You call this “Fair and Balanced”?