RESEARCHERS have discovered the first-known dog-fox hybrid in Brazil.
The hybrid is a cross between a South American pampas fox and a dog – and is being dubbed a Dogxim.
1
The hybrid was uncovered in the Cerrado region of Brazil, a biome composed of savannas and grasslands.
It is not exactly clear how the hybrid came to be, but it is likely that its mother was a pampas fox and its father was a dog.
Since being uncovered, the animal has perplexed researchers because of its odd eating behaviors and strange appearance.
The animal barked like a dog and had fur like a dog, but featured pointed ears and a long snout like a fox.
With regards to its diet, it would refuse to consume dog food, and would only eat small rats.
“It was not as docile as a dog, but it also lacked the aggressiveness expected of a wild canid when handled,” a conservationist who helped care for the creature told The Telegraph.
The animal was first found in 2021 after suffering an accident on the roads of Rio Grande do Sul.
It was nursed back to health at the Center for Conservation and Rehabilitation of Wild Animals at the Federal University of Grande do Sul.
Most read in Tech
Initially, researchers believed that the animal belonged only to one class of animal.
But after they couldn’t match the creature to any single species, they turned their focus to cross-breeding.
“This discovery implies that, although these species diverged about 6.7 million years ago and belong to different genera, they might still produce viable hybrids,” the researchers write in a study.
The team said that, so far, there is no evidence of other hybrids in this region.
“However, we suspect that this case we have described is not the only one,” Bruna Szynwelski told Newsweek.
The study was published in the journal Animals two months ago.
