Excuse me? (Picture: Getty)
We all know dogs are man’s best friend. And woman’s, because hello, it’s 2024.
But it seems humans and the dog family, officially known as Canidae, have an even stronger affinity than first thought.
Alongside domesticating dogs, people may have once kept foxes as pets.
Before going any further, a PSA. Do not try to keep a fox as a pet. Even if they’re tame enough to climb into your bins or almost trip you up while walking and reading your phone.
Thousands of years ago however, hunter-gatherer groups in northern Patagonia, a region in South America encompassing modern-day Argentina and Chile, appear to have had a close relationship with a local fox species, Dusicyon avus.
Analysis of their diets have shown they ate almost exactly the same as the humans around them – so were either fed by them, or went digging in their bins too.
The extinct fox Dusicyon avus (Picture: Wikipedia)
Co-author Dr Ophélie Lebrasseur told Metro.co.uk: ‘Our study focused on the burial site of Cañada Seca, located in the southern province of Mendoza in northwestern Patagonia Argentina, where at least 21 human individuals were buried.
‘The site was dated to around 1,500 years ago based on radiocarbon dating analysis conducted on the human remains.
‘We also recovered a canid specimen which we identified as Dusicyon avus based on morphological and genetic analysis. Radiocarbon analyses indicated this specimen lived at the same time as the humans who were buried on the site.’
The fox, now extinct, was a medium-sized animal weighing about 10 to 15 kilograms – about the same as a whippet.
‘What was intriguing about our study is that this individual had a very similar diet to the human individuals, which differed from other South American canids,’ said Dr Lebrasseur, from Oxford University’s School of Archaeology.
They may look cute, but foxes are not pets (Picture: Getty/500px)
‘This implies it was either fed by the hunter gatherers or fed on the kitchen refuse. This observation combined with its burial at a human burial site suggests it probably had a very close bond with the hunter gatherers, and may have been a companion.’
Dogs were first domesticated between 18,000 and 32,000 years ago, hence the glorious range of breeds in existence today.
Clearly domesticating foxes didn’t take off, and they remain distinctly wild.
But the study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, not only proves they once lived happily alongside humans, but were also spread further around South America than previously thought, described by Dr Lebrasseur as a ‘surprising find’.
The foxes were not moved by humans, but made their own way.
‘The reason why we know it was not relocated by humans is because studies suggest the hunter-gatherer community with which our D avus specimen was found appears to have had a mobility of about 70 kilometres,’ said Dr Lebrasseur.
‘So while they were not sedentary, they had a regional mobility. Consequently, our specimen of D avus must have been living in the vicinity to be taken in by that hunter gatherer community.’
Red foxes are found across the UK (Picture: Getty)
Sadly, the fox species went extinct about 500 years ago. Our own red fox, or vulpes vulpes, is thriving.
So too are the nation’s dogs – there are around 13.5 million pet dogs in the UK, a million more than pet cats.
Human’s best friend indeed.