Natural History

Wild culpeo.

I had read of this domestication, but I did not know that a taxidermied specimen existed. The perro yagán was a domesticated culpeo that lived in the camps of the Yagán, an indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego. This taxidermied specimen has spots and shorter legs that the wild version, which are both traits we associate with domestication in canids.

Culpeos are known to beg for food, and they generally don’t have much fear of people.  The origin of their name has to do with the way they steal from people, raid chicken coops, and kill lambs.

There is some evidence that the warrah or Falkland Islands wolf was also domesticated. It is often suggested that it was domesticated on the mainland and then transported to those islands.

It is definitely known that Channel Islands foxes were introduced to the most remote of their insular range through this same process. Yes, these foxes were also semi-domesticated.

Canid domestication is something that has happened throughout history. There have been attempts, but only one has truly been successful.

The domestication of C. lupus has been very different from the others.

It certainly raises a question about why the domestication of C. lupus was so successful.

I’ve always thought that the dhole was a better candidate for domestication than C. lupus, but the dholes have never been domesticated. Dholes have been kept as pets, and they have been known to run with pariah dogs in packs.

I have never heard of dholes interbreeding with domestic dogs, so we can definitely discount the dhole as their ancestor.

It would be interesting to see if there were other forms of semi-domesticated wild dog, just to see if we can make comparisons to the process in which dogs were domesticated.

This is one find that has my imagination spinning.

***

The South American “foxes” are actually derived from the same evolutionary root that gave us the genus Canis and its allies, Cuon and Lycaon. The same goes for all the South American wild dogs.

The culpeo and other South American foxes are in the genus Lycalopex, which is derived from the Greek words Lycaon (which means wolf) and Alopex (which means fox). They are literally “wolf foxes.”  They are more closely related to wolves, but they have evolved into a fox-like form.

At one time, I called these animals “zorros,” which refers to the Spanish word for fox. However, this name makes things confusing to Spanish speakers.

The truth is we don’t have a very good English word for these canids. I just call them South American foxes.

However, here is something confusing. The gray fox that lives in the US has a range that extends all the way to Colombia and Venezuela. One of the Lycalopex foxes is called a gray fox. If I say South American gray fox, how do you know which animal I’m referring to?

Maybe I’m over-thinking this, but the English language is limiting here.