Short answers, pulled from the story.
The word fox derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *pu- meaning thick-haired, a linguistic echo of the animal's most defining feature, its bushy tail. This creature belongs to the family Canidae and has carved a unique niche in human imagination as the ultimate trickster. The name carries a dialectal history with the word vixen retaining a southern English pronunciation of v instead of f.
The red fox can weigh up to fourteen kilograms while the fennec fox adapted to the scorching deserts of North Africa weighs less than a kilogram. The fennec fox possesses ears so large they act as radiators to dissipate heat and has partially retractable claws for a softer grip on prey. These animals are digitigrade and use mystacial vibrissae on the muzzle that average ten centimeters long to detect air currents.
Vixens are in heat for only one to six days yet their gestation period lasts from fifty-two to fifty-three days resulting in litters that average four to five kits. The red fox typically lives in small family groups while the Arctic fox is often solitary and the gray fox is one of only two canine species known to regularly climb trees. The reproductive success rate for these litters is eighty percent.
A fifty-year project began in the Soviet Union to create a new breed of fox from the wild red fox by selectively breeding only the tamest individuals. Researchers observed the emergence of physical and behavioral traits including floppy ears, curly tails, and piebald coats that had never been seen in wild foxes. These domesticated foxes began to exhibit behaviors similar to domestic dogs and cats such as whimpering for attention and displaying a lack of fear toward humans.
Urban foxes particularly the red fox have become resident carnivores that thrive on the discarded food waste of human civilization allowing them to live longer and have smaller litters than their rural counterparts. These animals have developed altered behaviors including increased population density and smaller territories as they navigate the complex landscape of urban environments. Despite their adaptability urban foxes face significant threats including predation by domestic cats and small dogs as well as the pressure to be excluded from these environments.
The island fox endemic to the California Channel Islands has seen its population decline by as much as ninety-five percent due to predation by non-native golden eagles and the outbreak of canine distemper virus. Conservationists have had to take healthy breeding pairs out of the wild to breed them in captivity to prevent the extinction of this unique subspecies. The Darwin's fox found in the Valdivian rainforest of Chile has been downgraded from critically endangered to endangered but its population remains limited to small pockets of forest.