Vulpes qiuzhudingi

Vulpes qiuzhudingi
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Canidae
Subfamily: Caninae
Tribe: Vulpini
Genus: Vulpes
Species: V. qiuzhudingi
Binomial name
Vulpes qiuzhudingi
(Wang et. al., 2014)[1]

Vulpes qiuzhudingi is an extinct species of fox found in the Himalayas. It was primarily carnivorous.[2] The fossils, dating from between 5.08 and 3.60 million years ago, were found in the Zanda Basin and Kunlun Mountains of Tibet.[3] It was named after Qiu Zhuding, a paleontologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.[2] The species is believed to be the ancestor of Vulpes lagopus, the modern Arctic fox, which would support the "Out of Tibet" theory: namely, that a number of current arctic species trace their ancestry to species originally from the Tibetan Plateau.[4]

References


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