News Release

California's dwarf Channel Island foxes mostly have relatively bigger brains than their larger mainland gray fox cousins, which may reflect island-specific evolutionary pressures

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

Increased brain size of the dwarf Channel Island fox (Urocyon littoralis) challenges “Island Syndrome” and suggests little evidence of domestication

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A Channel Island fox stands among prickly pear cacti, a common dietary item for Santa Catalina foxes.

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Credit: Kimberly A. Schoenberger, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

California's dwarf Channel Island foxes mostly have relatively bigger brains than their larger mainland gray fox cousins, which may reflect island-specific evolutionary pressures

Article URL: http://plos.io/4m6uyhk

Article title: Increased brain size of the dwarf Channel Island fox (Urocyon littoralis) challenges “Island Syndrome” and suggests little evidence of domestication

Author countries: U.S.

Funding: Funding for this project and Kimberly's PhD research was provided by Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California; the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies and Offield Family Foundation; and the USC Women in Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.


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