image: A Channel Island fox stands among prickly pear cacti, a common dietary item for Santa Catalina foxes.
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.
Journal
PLOS One
Article Title
Increased brain size of the dwarf Channel Island fox (Urocyon littoralis) challenges “Island Syndrome” and suggests little evidence of domestication
Article Publication Date
20-Aug-2025
COI Statement
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.