Vets noted how the animal showed characteristics of both a domesticated and wild species – having preferred to eat live rodents and initially bring wary of people.

Sept 16, 2024 – by Tim Hanlon – the Daily Record

Scientists believe they have found an “amazing” new species; a cross between a dog and a fox. The animal, dubbed a ‘dogxim’, was taken to the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul veterinary hospital in Brazil after it was hit by a car in 2021.

Baffled medics were unable to work out if it was a fox or a dog, so ordered genetic testing. The highly-awaited results have just been published that suggest the animal is the first-ever hybrid dog-fox.

The dogxim – which shared characteristics of both animals, with large pointy ears, thick wiry fur, and a long pointed snout – sadly died earlier this year of unknown causes. It is only now following the results of the test that it has emerged how significant she was, reports the Mirror.

Vets noted how the animal showed characteristics of both a domesticated and wild species – having preferred to eat live rodents and initially being wary of people. At the same time, it was not as aggressive as would have been expected of a wild animal.

Flavia Ferrari, a conservationist who worked with the hybrid animal, said that over time the dogxim became more comfortable being around people. Flavia said: “She was an amazing animal, really a hybrid between a pampas fox and a dog.

“It was not as docile as a dog, but it also lacked the aggressiveness of a wild canid when handled. She had a shy and cautious personality, generally preferring to stay away from people. Over the time she was hospitalised for treatment, I believe she started to feel safer.”

Tests determined the animal – which had a bark like a dog and liked to play with toys – had 76 chromosomes, which were a mixture of those found in foxes and dogs. Researchers believe the animal’s mum was a pampas fox and her dad is a domestic dog – but they are not sure what breed he was.

The animal was neutered as part of her treatment – but scientists believed she may have been able to reproduce and there are more dog-fox crossbreeds in the wild.

Bruna Elenara Szynwelski of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, which did tests on the animal, said: “In our study we recorded the first case of hybridisation between one species of wild canid and the domestic dog.”

The findings were published in the journal Animals and scientists believe there may be more dogxims in the wild. It is not the first time that domestic dogs have interbred with wild species before, including coyotes, wolves and dingos, but these have been within the same genus, or biological group.

Meet Dogxim, the World’s First Confirmed Dog-Fox Hybrid

New animal just dropped!

By Cassidy Ward Oct 2, 2023, 5:28 PM ET – SyFy

he fictional team behind Jurassic World succeeded in doing what John Hammond only dreamed of. The park opened in 2005 with nearly 100,000 visitors in the first month and operated for a decade, largely without incident. Then the park’s owners got greedy, demanding a new attraction to impress investors and spur attendance. The ensuing project results in the creation of the Indominus rex and the downfall of Jurassic World.

Not content to recreate extinct megafauna, the parks scientists, led by Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong), cook up an entirely new animal in the Indominus rex. Its genetic framework is built upon the T. rex genome but modified with genes from a number of other theropod dinosaurs including the velociraptor. Moreover, geneticists equipped the I. rex with genes from tree frogs, pit vipers, and cuttlefish, making it incredibly resourceful and incredibly deadly.

Real world geneticists have managed to create a number of transgenic animals by inserting genes from one species into another. Recently, scientists did exactly that to create silkworm-spider hybrids which produce stronger silk. Despite our successes, humanity is in the early days of making hybrid animals, but nature has been doing it for ages. Now, scientists have verified the existence of the world’s first confirmed dog-fox hybrid.

Dog-Fox Hybrid, Adorable Sign of Human Encroachment

People have reported sightings of suspected dog-fox hybrids throughout history, but none have ever been confirmed until now. It’s estimated that foxes split from the rest of Canidae (the canine group) about 7 million years ago and scientists believed that foxes and domestic dogs were too evolutionarily divergent to intermix. Tell that to the world’s first confirmed dog-fox hybrid, named Dogxim, a portmanteau of dog and graxaim-do-campo, the Portuguese name for the pampas fox.

The first confirmed dog-fox hybrid, Dogxim, at an animal rehab facility in Brazil Photo: Rafael Kretschmer; Marcelo Meller Alievi

Dogxim’s spent her early days in the wild but was hit by a car in 2021 and taken to a wildlife rehab facility in southern Brazil. There, her human caregivers noticed her unusual behavior and strange characteristics. She barks like a dog, but her face and ears are more pointed than most dogs. The real kicker though, Dogxim refuses dog food, preferring to catch and eat rats instead. Still, plenty of dogs are weird and there are probably more rats than kibble when you’re living in the wild.

To find out for sure, workers at Brazil’s Center for Conservation and Rehabilitation of Wild Animals contacted geneticists from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and Universidade Federal de Pelotas, who ran Dogxim’s DNA.

RELATED: Decoding the mutant dogs of Chernobyl’s exclusion zone

The tests confirmed that Dogxim is the offspring of a female pompas fox and a male domestic dog. The historic findings were published in the journal Animals. One of the big reasons scientists believed dogs and foxes were incapable of mating is the differing number of chromosomes. Domestic dogs have 78 chromosomes while pampas foxes have only 74. In the case of Dogxim, biology decided to split the difference; genetic testing confirmed she has 76 chromosomes.

In addition to forcing us to rethink what we know about canine evolution, the existence of Dogxim might also suggest an increase in contact between wild and domestic species. While hybridization is a well-worn survival tactic in nature, it could also serve as a warning system for when we (and our pets) are environmentally overstepping.

In the case against making hybrid animals willy nilly, we present exhibit A: Jurassic World, available from Universal Pictures.