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The fennec fox (Vulpes zerda) is a small fox native to the deserts of North Africa, ranging from Western Sahara and Mauritania to the Sinai Peninsula. Its most distinctive feature is its unusually large ears, which serve to dissipate heat and listen for underground prey.
When predators and prey are abundant, Arctic foxes are more likely to be promiscuous (exhibited in both males and females) and display more complex social structures. Larger packs of foxes consisting of breeding or non-breeding males or females can guard a single territory more proficiently to increase pup survival.
Foxes have been introduced in numerous locations, with varying effects on indigenous flora and fauna. [39] In some countries, foxes are major predators of rabbits and hens. Population oscillations of these two species were the first nonlinear oscillation studied and led to the derivation of the Lotka–Volterra equation. [40] [41]
Most foxes will run or hide from larger prey as they have adapted to only hunting small prey such as rabbits, mice and other small animals. During this time of year, while foxes are more active ...
Both the Lotka–Volterra and Rosenzweig–MacArthur models have been used to explain the dynamics of natural populations of predators and prey. In the late 1980s, an alternative to the Lotka–Volterra predator–prey model (and its common-prey-dependent generalizations) emerged, the ratio dependent or Arditi–Ginzburg model. [22]
Predators to the bat-eared fox are mostly large mammalian carnivores, but they are also prey to large raptors and the Central African rock python. Black-backed jackals pose the greatest threat to young bat-eared foxes, but in breeding areas, adults will engage in mobbing behavior to drive them off. [4]
A stoat surplus killing chipmunks (Ernest Thompson Seton, 1909) Multiple sheep killed by a cougar. Surplus killing, also known as excessive killing, henhouse syndrome, [1] [2] or overkill, [3] is a common behavior exhibited by predators, in which they kill more prey than they can immediately eat and then they either cache or abandon the remainder.
Kit foxes are opportunistic omnivores and scavengers, possibly regulated by prey abundance, [15] but primarily carnivorous. In the Californian deserts, its primary prey is Merriam's kangaroo rat (Dipodomys merriami). [16] Other common prey species include lagomorphs, rodents and insects.