Foxes In Cities Evolving Smaller Skulls, Much Like Domesticated Pets
This is pretty wild! Or... quite literally the opposite of wild.
According to a new study, foxes that were found in the city of London have stubbier snouts, and even smaller skulls than their wildlife-dwelling counterparts. And these changes aren't that new, it's been seen before.. with cats and dogs as they became domesticated 20,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Researchers are now suggesting that city foxes could possibly be self-domesticating due to the demands of the city environment, as well as, exposure to humans.
So why are these adaptations happening? Foxes that dwell in the city are reported to have a wider snout and smaller braincase due to the levels of requiring food in the city versus their natural habitat. They rely on food scraps, which doesn't require as strong of a bite to clamp down on bones. Whereas country foxes need that snout that enables them to bite their prey quickly.
Story via Business Insider
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Researchers compared 274 Skulls of red foxes, from London, and compared to their country-dwelling counterparts. They found urban foxes had a smaller brain size and a different snout shape.
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And while foxes are not domesicated, they are evolving in ways that more them towards what has been seen with cats and dogs.
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In the UK, it's legal to keep a red fox as a pet, which only happens over long periods of selective breeding. However, The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) doesn't condone keeping foxes as pets for they are wild animals.
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Urban female foxes could be driving these adaptations
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Male city foxes, still have more elongated snouts than the females. Perhaps due to the females spending more time in dens
When females are spending so much time in the dens, it leads them to forage for food close to the den while the males are out hunting. This could lead the females to adapt "more intensely," researchers wrote. Males, meanwhile, engage in more defensive actions as parents, which might "favor the faster more elongate jaws."
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More research is needed on what's driving these changes, the researchers noted
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