Red fox, gray fox (lesser known, but actually the native species of fox to New England – red foxes were brought over for hunting from England), coyote and the pelt in my arms was from a gray wolf.
If you were able to recognize the red fox (farthest to the left) by its coloring – reddish coat with black legs – then the only smaller canine in North America (not counting the arctic fox, which has a striking white pelt – which this clearly wasn’t) is the gray fox , which is the critter in the middle. Through deduction (North American canines consist only of foxes, coyote and wolves), the animal on the right would have to be either a coyote or gray wolf. Given its size in relation to the foxes, it’s not really big enough to be a wolf, so would be a coyote. Leaving us with only one other large canine species in North America – the gray wolf. Which was the pelt in my arms.
Congrats to Kate, who correctly identified all four! Diane, you were close, but had your foxes reversed! I truly appreciate everyone who stops by and shares their comments and thoughts on this blog, so I’m happy to offer a gift to all who commented yesterday.
I recently updated and expanded my tracking guide – which is NOT a field guide to animal tracks (sorry!), but a three-page document meant to help newer trackers get a broader sense of what’s involved in tracking and how to get started with identification.
Let me know in the comments if you’d like me to email you a copy of the .pdf, and I’ll be happy to do so. You don’t need to publicize your email when you comment (unless you really want to) – I’ll get your email when you submit your comment.
Thanks for playing everyone!
So, I’ve been in endless meetings over the past couple days and just got to your post from Monday this evening. As I was about to guess, I realized that you probably answered it already….so I’m totally cheating now. That’s okay, though, because I had no idea. (Well, I had a guess going by size, but I wasn’t sure.) This is why I read your blog. To learn things like this!
I wouldn’t have guessed this…good lesson Cynthia,,thank you,,,
Thought you might be interested in a blog post of a blog I just started visiting with a photo of a coyote taking a kill….
http://awindowintothewoods.com/2012/03/10/murder-in-the-woods/
Interesting post… Murder in the Woods, indeed. Murder is a human invention – killing others of your own species for untold reasons. No other animal in the natural world commits murder – just us. That animal is trying its best to survive, not killing for the fun of it. I know that hearing about animals killing other animals can be upsetting to some folks, but for goodness sake – where do they think that the steak (or chicken, or roast lamb) on their dinner table came from??!! We do well more than our share of killing innocent animals – and they live unpleasant lives on those factory farms while waiting to go to slaughter. Just because we’ve sanitized the killing process for the family dinner table, doesn’t make the killing we do any better than what other predators do to survive. In fact, I’d argue that it’s far, far worse.
Ahem, sorry. Got a little worked up. Stepping off my soap box now… 🙂