JOURNAL OF CAVE AND KARST STUDIES / ARTICLES / VOLUME 87

 

VULPES VULPES (RED FOX) REMAINS FROM STANTON’S CAVE, GRANDCANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZONA

Mary C. Carpenter and Jim I. Mead

Publication Date: 2025/12/01

Publication Volume: Journal of Cave and Karst Science 87 #4

DOI Link:

Article Link: https://caves.org/wp-content/uploads/Publications/JCKS/v87/87_4_175.pdf

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ABSTRACT:

Stanton’s Cave is a large solutional cavern in the eastern region of Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. The cave is best known to Quaternary paleontologists for its abundant Late Pleistocene and early Holocene fossil remains of mammals, birds, and Archaic artifacts. Re-examination of the fossil vertebrate collection, housed at the Grand Canyon Museum Collections, has resulted in re-identification of two fox dentaries (GRCA 76272) that were originally published as Urocyon cinereoargenteus (gray fox). Morphometric and morphological comparisons presented here find the den- taries diagnostic to Vulpes vulpes (red fox) and not the gray fox. The remains are the first record of Vulpes vulpes from the Grand Canyon and may be the first fossil evidence of the species from Arizona.