Darwin Chile's Foxy Canid

Smaller in size than the fox we see generally, and native to the rainforests of Central Chile, Darwin’s Fox is quite the evolutionary wonder

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No guesses for the inspiration behind the name, this species of canid – from the wolf lineage – was discovered by Charles Darwin in 1834, off the coast of Chile. By 1837, William Charles Linnaeus Martin (Darwin’s colleague at the Zoological Society of London) officially described the new species, naming it Lycalopex Fulvipes. While studies aimed at proving the Darwin as a subspecies of the South American Grey Fox or the Patagonian, a small population of the Darwin at the Nahuelbuta National Park and more recently, at parks in and around Valdivia in Chile established its existence as a unique species.

Lycalopex is a South American genus of canine, which is distantly related to wolves and is technically not a fox. So, during Darwin’s research on this species – while on his HMS Beagle expedition – he discovered this rare “fox”, from the San Pedro Island in Chiloé Archipelago and went on to record in the publication of his Journal and Remarks, that, “This fox, more curious or more scientific, but less wise, than the generality of his brethren, is now mounted in the museum of the Zoological Society.”