Short answers, pulled from the story.
A fox is a small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammal in the family Canidae. Foxes have a flattened skull, upright triangular ears, a pointed and slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail called a brush. Twelve species form the true fox group of genus Vulpes.
The red fox, Vulpes vulpes, is the most common and widespread species of fox, with about 47 recognized subspecies. Males weigh between 4.1 and 8.7 kg, making it the largest fox species.
Foxes live on every continent except Antarctica. Several species are classified as resident urban carnivores because they can sustain populations entirely within city boundaries, and urban foxes are ubiquitous in Europe.
In the wild, a fox typically lives one to three years, though some individuals reach ten years. Vixens average a litter of four to five kits after a gestation of 52 to 53 days, while the Arctic fox can have up to eleven kits.
The island fox of the California Channel Islands declined by as much as 95 percent since 1993, driven by a canine distemper virus outbreak from 1999 to 2000 and predation by non-native golden eagles. Conservationists bred healthy pairs in captivity and removed nonnative grazers to help the population recover.
Nearly fifty years of experiments in the Soviet Union and Russia domesticated the silver morph of the red fox from scratch. The selective breeding produced traits seen in cats and dogs, including pigmentation changes, floppy ears, and curly tails, and the foxes became tame enough to be petted.
In European, Persian, East Asian, and Native American folklore, foxes symbolize cunning and trickery, a reputation tied to their reputed ability to evade hunters. In East Asian folklore they appear as familiar spirits with magic powers, including the nine-tailed foxes of Chinese mythology.