Two subspecies of this widespread Holarctic species are reported to occur in Japan. These are V. v. schrencki (a.k.a. Ezo Red Fox) which ranges from Sakhalin, Russia to Hokkaido in Northern Japan. It is characterized by larger size and black paws. It is replaced south of Blakiston's Line (between Hokkaido and Honshu) by the smaller V. v. japonicus. A molecular study by Inoue et al (2007) confirmed the genetic differences between the two populations. A more recent analysis also confirmed the distinctiveness of V. v. schrencki and further suggested that the North American populations south and east of Alaska deserve status as a phylogenetic species V. fulva. However genetic studies by Kutschera et al. (2013) and Black et al. (2018) argued against this proposed split. Canon PowerShot SX60.
References:
Kristina L Black, Sonia K Petty, Volker C Radeloff, Jonathan N Pauli. (2018) The Great Lakes Region is a melting pot for vicariant red fox (Vulpes vulpes) populations, Journal of Mammalogy, Volume 99, Issue 5, 10 October 2018, Pages 1229–1236, https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyy096
Inoue T, Nonaka N, Mizuno A et al. (2007) Mitochondrial DNA phylogeography of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) in northern Japan. Zoological Science, 24, 1178–1186. https://doi.org/10.2108/zsj.24.1178
Kutschera et al. (2013) A range-wide synthesis and timeline for phylogeographic events in the red fox (Vulpes vulpes). BMC Evolutionary Biology2013,13:114 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/13/114
Statham, M. J., Murdoch, J. , Janecka, J. , Aubry, K. B., Edwards, C. J., Soulsbury, C. D., Berry, O. , Wang, Z. , Harrison, D. , Pearch, M. , Tomsett, L. , Chupasko, J. and Sacks, B. N. (2014), Range-wide multilocus phylogeography of the red fox reveals ancient continental divergence, minimal genomic exchange and distinct demographic histories. Mol Ecol, 23: 4813-4830. doi:10.1111/mec.12898
Wikipedia contributors. (2019, April 20). Ezo red fox. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:11, May 19, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ezo_red_fox&oldid=893253915