Foxes: creatures with dog ‘hardware’ and cat ‘software’?

In this video, we look deeper into the traits of the domesticated fox, how they overlap with present-day dogs, and how their intelligence and behaviour patterns may diverge from wild foxes.

Foxes may look like tiny dogs, yet they pounce like cats. What could be going on inside the brains of these incredible animals?

Described as “dog hardware running cat software”, foxes are actually incredible problem-solvers, build extremely detailed mental maps of their environment, and can recognise individuals. And over the last 70 years, some foxes have been selectively bred to be friendly to humans, with their descendants behaving completely differently than their wild counterparts.

As for wild fox intelligence, it appears, for now, to be an under-studied area by scientists.

In terms of taxonomy, foxes and dogs are members of the same animal family, canidae, but their lineage splits off from there. While dogs are domesticated members of the canis genus, foxes belong to several different, non-canis genera. In fact, the 12 most common ‘true fox’ species belong to the genus vulpes.

View the original video here.

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