These little bat-eared foxes are getting some milk from their mother.
When they are eventually weaned, their diet will become something very unusual among canids.
These foxes, which are found in southern and East Africa, are specialists.
Harvester termites comprise up to 90 percent of their diet.
Most other wild dogs are generalists. The Ethiopian wolf lives almost entirely on big-headed mole rats. Over 90 percent of its diet consists of that species.
But virtually all other species of canid eat more than one thing, and Ethiopian wolves will hunt other species when it is given an opportunity.
But the bat-eared fox is adapted to eating termites. It has more teeth than any other canid species, but these numerous teeth are very small and have a much reduced cutting surface than one would find in other canids.
No other canid species has specialized in this way.
If the harvester termites become extinct, the bat-eared foxes will likely follow them.
Or they might adapt to a more generalist canid diet.
But because their teeth are so different, it will be harder for them to get the same amount of nutrition from trying to hunt rodents and other small mammals.
Maybe evolution could throw them a bone, and they could re-evolve the dentition necessary for a generalist diet.
Maybe.
But one shouldn’t assume that it would.
Re-evolving dentition necessary for a generalist diet would have to be built upon the specialist adaptations.
And it would still likely put them at a disadvantage when it comes to other small canids.
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ants or grasshoppers maybe??? Interesting information.