Animals require carotenoids and apocarotenoids for vision (eg retinoids) and reproductive and general health, and obtain them by eating plants or, for carnivores, eating herbivores [ 101, 102]. Before we can understand how foxes employ scent, we need to take a brief look at what scent actually is and how it is both produced and detected. Recently, while trailing in Algonquin Park with the Earth Tracks Wildlife Tracking Apprenticeship some of us bent down on different occasions to smell Eastern Timber Wolf/Algonquin Wolf ( Canis lycaon), Red Fox ( Vulpes vulpes), and River Otter ( Lontra canadensis) scent marks, which were usually small deposits of urine placed in a prominent spot along the animal’s trail.

Urine scent marking behaviour has long been known in foxes, but there has not been a recent study of the chemical composition of fox urine. As we travel around, we humans leave a scent trail in our wake, on objects we've encountered - something that's used with great success by police tracker or mountain/disaster rescue dogs.fOnly found in stir bar analyses, whose relative quantitative data could not be combined with those from SPME analyses. million metric tons, and it leaches into the environment, where it now has a world-wide distribution in water and effluents [ 62]. In the winter, when trailing Red Foxes I tend to bend down and check out scent marks on the trail as an additional way to confirm that I am following the animal I think I am. Native plants for winter interest are pretty and will keep birds and wildlife happy in the cold months.

If mixing scent molecules with lipids affects their release, then the types of molecules and lipids may affect the overall scent produced, implying the possibility that I smell different from you, for example, despite us both being humans. Several have also been found in the fox tail gland: 2,6,6-trimethylcyclohexanone (30), β-cyclocitral (48), β-ionone and its 5,6-epoxide (which co-eluted, 62) and dihydroactinidiolide (65) [ 36]. When triggered by a molecule they send an electrical signal to an area of the brain known as the olfactory bulb. The extraction proceeded for 30 min at 40°C while the tube contents were mixed by repeated cycles of 400 rpm rotation for 5 s followed by 1 s rest. Foxes eat a significant amount of plant material [ 10], especially fruits [ 17, 105], which are a good source of carotenoids [ 102, 106].

This illustrates the limitation in using relative percentages as a surrogate for quantitation: the values are interdependent. When they become accustomed to humans, other nuisance behaviour such as bin-raiding and biting can occur [ 2]. We take great pride in our red fox urine, and it's taken us years to offer a urine that we feel is the best available.

If sulfur compounds are required for a high quality diet, then their abundance in urine could indicate just such an honest signal to foxes. Water blank samples showed several extraneous peaks, mainly Si compounds from the SPME fibre and, occasionally, traces of laboratory solvents; these were ignored. The results suggest a highly evolved language of chemical communication underlying foxes’ social structure and behaviour. Loss of the sulfur moiety (-SH, -SCH3, -CH 2SCH 3 radicals, and related whole molecules) produced ions that distinguished thiols from methyl sulfides, and the 1- and 2-thio-substituted phenylethane isomers from each other.

molecules of 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, a chemical that gives popcorn and basmati rice (and, as it turns out, binturongs) their distinctive smell. In other words, scent marking is the deposition of secretions/excretions, either on objects in the environment or on other members of the same species, that contain information about the depositor and can be detected and interpreted by conspecifics. The total abundance of these quantitative ions (QI) in the mass spectrum was divided by the total of all ions (TIC) giving the ratio QI/TIC. It has been found in several animals, notably canids and 5 musteloid species, and it may also have endogenous sources. However, there are several compounds found only in foxes or in few other mammals, indicating that they are not normal mammalian metabolites and that their production has evolved to serve a functional role in foxes.