The history of arid-land fox discoveries in North America H. O. CLARK, JR H. T. Harvey & Associates, 7815 North Palm Avenue, Suite 310, Fresno, California, 93711–5511, USA (e-mail: hclark@harveyecology.com). ABSTRACT: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1805 wrote the first substantial details of an arid-land fox. It was not until 1823, however, that Thomas Say described this same species of fox scientifically, and gave it a Latin name. Since then several other arid-dwelling foxes have been discovered. It almost seems that each south-western state in the United States and northern Mexico had its own fox, neatly described and named. But with the advent of modern biology and genetics, and the re-thinking of the “species concept”, has the rich history of arid-land fox discoveries become just a footnote? In this paper I bring the work of nineteenth- and twentieth-century explorers and naturalists to the modern reader, providing the historical accounts that can only be found in library archives. I focus only on foxes that occur in North American desert and prairie habitats, excluding those fox species that occur in woodland and forested communities. KEY WORDS: desert – Great Plains – kit fox – swift fox – Vulpes macrotis – Vulpes velox. INTRODUCTION Today, there are considered to be two species of arid-land foxes occupying the western United States and the northern half of Mexico. Vulpes velox (Say, 1823), called the swift fox, occurs in the Great Plains from north-central Texas to southern Canada. V. macrotis (Merriam, 1888), the kit fox, occurs in the deserts of south-western North America, the Central Valley of California, and central to northern Mexico (Figure 1). Both species are adapted to arid conditions, weigh approximately five pounds (2.3 kg), and are typically buff-coloured with black-tipped tails. As explorers moved westward across the United States many new animals were discovered, including these small foxes. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed a paramount effort to capture and describe these species, adding to the natural history of these territories. Herein I focus on the arid-land foxes, excluding the red fox (Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1758)), the gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus (Schreber, 1775)), and the Channel Island gray fox (U. littoralis (Baird 1858)). Although these foxes can occupy arid environments, they are not necessarily adapted to these habitats, and typically occur in forested or wooded communities. U. littoralis is restricted to the California Channel Islands which, while arid, possess woodlands and shrublands. FIRST DESCRIPTIONS OF ARID-LAND FOXES In their explorations from 1804 to 1806, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark encountered a small burrowing fox in the northern portion of the Great Plains. Their journal entry for Archives of natural history 38.2 (2011): 300–312 Edinburgh University Press DOI: 10.3366/anh.2011.0036 # The Society for the History of Natural History www.eupjournals.com/anh