User:Thekingguy7/Gray fox

Description
Gray foxes also have black around their eyes, on the lips, and on their noses. Like other canids, the fox's ears and muzzle are angular and pointed, and its claws tend to be lengthier and curved. The gray fox also has reddish coloration on parts of its body, including the legs, sides, feet, chest, and back and sides of the head and neck. The stripe on the fox's tail ends in a black tip as well. Their weight can be similar to that of a red fox, but gray foxes don't seem as large because their fur isn't as long and they have shorter limbs.

Interspecies Competition
Gray foxes often hunt for the same prey as bobcats and coyotes who occupy the same region. To avoid interspecies competition, the gray fox has developed certain behaviors and habits to increase their survival chances. In regions where gray foxes and coyotes hunt for the same food, the gray fox has been observed to give space to the coyote, staying within its own established range for hunting. Gray foxes might also avoid their competitors by inhabiting different habitats than them. In California, gray foxes do this by living in chaparral where their competitors are fewer and the landscape provides them a greater chance to escape from a dangerous encounter. It also has been suggested that gray foxes could be more active at night than during the day to temporally avoid their larger competitors.

Still, gray foxes frequently fall victim to bobcats and coyotes. When killed, the carcasses are often unconsumed, suggesting they are victims of intraguild predation. These gray foxes are often killed on or near the boundary of their established range, when they begin to interfere with their competitors. Gray foxes are known as mesopredators because they are mid-tier predators and their prey consists mostly of smaller mammals, while coyotes are known as de facto apex predators due to the removal of other apex predators like wolves in North America. This explains the gray fox's tendency to change behavior in response to the coyote threat, as they are essentially lower on the food chain. However, in the non-native habitat of Australia, gray foxes are seen to behave more confidently and less cautiously when using resources that are also used by dingos, the apex predator of the area. This is theorized to be due to the lack of human hunting increasing the stability of gray fox populations, indicating human influence on the behaviors expressed by gray foxes under interspecies competition.

Diet
The gray fox is an omnivorous, solitary hunter. It frequently preys on the eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) in the eastern U.S., though it will readily catch voles, shrews, and birds. In California, the gray fox primarily eats rodents, followed by lagomorphs, e.g. jackrabbit, brush rabbit, etc. In some parts of the Western United States (such as in the Zion National Park in Utah), the gray fox is primarily insectivorous and herbivorous. Fruit is an important component of the diet of the gray fox and they seek whatever fruits are readily available, generally eating more vegetable matter than does the red fox (Vulpes vulpes). Generally, there is an increase in fruits and invertebrates within the gray fox's diet in the transition from winter to spring. As nuts, grains, and fruits become more numerous, they are cached by foxes. Typically, they attempt to cover the area with their scent either through their scent glands or urine. This marking serves the dual purpose of allowing them to find the food again later and preventing other animals from taking it.

Hunting
It has been documented that gray foxes are hunted in the US. The volume by which they are hunted has correlated to the value of their pelts. Between the 1970-71 and 1975-76 hunting seasons, the price of gray fox pelts greatly increased and the number of individuals hunted jumped from 26,109 to 163,458.

Ecosystem Role
Since woodrats, cotton rats, and mice make up a large part of the gray fox's diet, they serve as important dictators of small rodent populations. In addition to their interactions with rodents, gray foxes also serve as hosts to various external and internal parasites, some of which include fleas, lice, nematodes, and tapeworms. In the United States, the most common parasite of the gray fox is Pulex simulans; however, several new parasitic arthropods were found in populations in central Mexico.

Behavior
Gray foxes that live near human populations tend to choose areas near hardwood trees, locations used primarily by humans, or roads to utilize as their habitat. For the most part, they rest on the ground rather than higher up in trees. Their choices do not change based on sex, the season, or the time of day. The increase of coyote populations around North America has reduced certain fox populations, so gray foxes have to choose a habitat that will allow them to escape the coyote threat as much as possible, hence the choice of habitat nearer to areas where humans are active. The larger predators of the gray fox, like coyotes and bobcats, tend to avoid human-use areas and paved roads, making this habitat incredibly useful for the gray fox. They heavily utilize the edges of forests as a travel corridor, which is used for primary movement from place to place. They also do the majority of their hunting in edges, and use them to escape from predators as well. Gray foxes are thus known as an edge species.