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Crab-eating fox (Cerdocyon thous): only member of its genus, not really a fox*, doesn’t actually eat that many crabs. Do we care? We do not. Lookit its pointy little ears! It’s too adorable to care that everything about it is a lie!
It also has the benefit of being fairly flexible, with a wide range of environments and no particular sensitivity to human activity or disturbed environments. I mean, it’s easy to like an animal that’s not too fussy about things.
There’s a fair amount of overlap in resource use between them and maned wolves, but they’re much smaller (usually about fifteen pounds) and don’t require as much take or as big a territory. They also hunt in pairs or small packs, which combines with their 60%-plant diet to drastically reduce actual competition with the wider-ranging, solitary, and higher-take lifestyle of their much bigger counterparts. Which is pretty cool, if you happen to be a crab-eating fox or a maned wolf with absolutely no interest in figuring out who would win in a fight between one wolf-sized fox and a bunch of fox-sized wolves. (Real answer: Whoever’s standing nearby with a video camera.)
For people thinking that maybe that name isn’t quite all that ridiculous: They’ve been found to be running around getting like 10% of their food from fucking dwarf coconuts and 0% from crabs. They actually get their names because, during the rainy season in areas with floodplains—basically where people can, uh, see them—they will go on an absolute binge on crabs. What’s for dinner? Crabs. All the crabs. Every crab on the continent. Crabs are gonna be a thing of the past. In areas where this doesn’t happen, and they don’t get to cram every crab ever right into their not-fox faces, they mostly stick to small mammals and birds in the wet season and lots and lots of larger insects in the dry season.
The lazy little fucks can dig dens but don’t, preferring infinitely to swipe another animal’s pre-dug den for when it’s time to pup. They tend to have litters of three or four babies, who look like this:
The babies get to stick around so long as they’re not out breeding on their own, and even then, they’ve been known to blow off their mates to come home and help take care of siblings. It’s not at all uncommon for adult offspring who lose their mates within the first year or two of independence to move back in with their parental pack for the next breeding season and just spend their time taking care of their new nieces and nephews. This is facilitated by the fact that, once they do decide to strike out on their own, they tend to move in right next door to mom and dad if at all possible.
It might seem like a bit of a sacrifice to give up a year or two of potentially reproducing on their own to help with their siblings, especially if they’re not getting a significant pack-hunting advantage like bush dogs do, but lots and lots of animals do this, especially if attractive territory or mates aren’t readily available. Basically you get a double bonus of kin selection and gaining experience without much risk, and you see the strategy in everything from songbirds to rodents to mustelids. Babies tend to do better the more adults are looking after them, and non-breeding adults get to practice parenting without being solely responsible for the baby. When it comes time to have their own litter, they’ve got some practice in, so their offspring are more likely to thrive.
*Not even actually a fake-fox.
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