How to Identify a Fox Skull and Tell It From a Coyote, Dog or Raccoon

The University of Arizona Extension's teaching guide to the skulls of Alaskan mammals describes the red fox skull in a few strokes: small incisors at the front, larger canines behind them, specialized carnassial teeth and a long, narrow rostrum. The rostrum is the snout part of the skull, in front of the eyes, and carnassials are the blade-like cheek teeth that meat-eaters use to shear flesh.

The teeth follow a set pattern, written as the dental formula I 3/3, C 1/1, P 4/4, M 2/3. Read it as three incisors, one canine, four premolars and two molars on each side of the upper jaw, and three incisors, one canine, four premolars and three molars on each side of the lower jaw. That makes 21 on each side and 42 in all. Gray foxes have 42 as well, so the count tells you fox, not which fox.

The University of Texas DigiMorph project, which scans museum specimens, adds a few finer points about the red fox skull. Compared with dogs and their relatives in the genus *Canis*, a red fox has a relatively long muzzle, flatter frontal bones on the forehead, short nasal bones, no frontal sinuses and relatively long, slender canines. If your skull has a smooth, low forehead and needle-like canines, that fits.

One caution before you count. Lost teeth, a young animal's teeth, damage and the occasional abnormal tooth can all make a count unreliable. Count the sockets along with the teeth, and lean on the shape when the count is incomplete.

This is the neatest trick in fox skulls. Along the top of the skull run two bony lines called temporal ridges, which mark where the big jaw muscles attach. Their shape differs between the two common North American foxes.

In a red fox, the ridges come together in a V. In a gray fox, they form a U. Texas Tech University's account of the common gray fox describes the gray fox ridges as distinctly lyrate, shaped like a lyre, and notes that they meet near the back of the skull. Maryland's simplified key to furbearer skulls uses exactly that V and U split, and places both foxes under 200 millimeters in greatest skull length.

To see the ridges, set the skull down so you are looking at it from above, in good light, ideally from one side so the lines cast a shadow. Start just behind the eye sockets and follow the two ridges back toward the rear of the skull. If they run together into a point, think red fox. If they stay apart and curve like the arms of a lyre, think gray fox.

Size does most of the work here. Measure the greatest length of the skull, from the tip of the snout to the very back. In Maryland's key, a coyote, *Canis latrans*, has a skull over 200 millimeters long, while red and gray fox skulls are below 200. Once you are under that line, the V or U ridges take over.

Two things blur the line. A young coyote has a smaller skull than an adult, and a broken skull may be missing the part you need to measure. Maryland's key is also a regional teaching tool, so an unusual individual can fall outside its numbers. If your skull sits close to 200 millimeters, give the other features more weight. The coyote skull story covers the coyote's own features, along with how it compares with a wolf.

A dog is the hardest comparison, because dogs have been bred into so many skull shapes, so lean on several traits rather than one. Compare them together: the teeth, the size, the length and width of the muzzle, the canines and the profile of the forehead. A fox's slender canines and flat forehead are worth checking against a labeled museum specimen or a state key.

For coyotes, there is a measured test that separates them from dogs using the length of the tooth row against the width of the palate, and the coyote skull story walks through it. If your skull is larger than a fox's and looks dog-like, start there.

A raccoon, *Procyon lotor*, is not a canid at all, and its skull shows it. It is shorter and broader than a fox's, with broad crushing molars and much less specialized carnassials. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History notes that raccoon molars are wide and suited to both crushing and shearing, the teeth of an animal that eats a bit of everything, and the University of Florida IFAS account of the northern raccoon describes it as an omnivore with a different dental formula from the fox. Our raccoon skull story has the full side-by-side.

And if your skull is small and round with a very short face, it is probably not a fox or a raccoon. A cat has about 30 teeth and a far shorter face, and how to identify a cat skull takes that one from there.

Put the skull on a table with a ruler and good light, and wear gloves if it is not fully clean. Then go through it in this order.

Good comparison skulls are easy to look at online. The National Park Service has shared Jacob W. Frank's photograph of a red fox skull from Yellowstone National Park.jpg), in the public domain. Two public-domain illustrations from 1856 show a gray fox skull.jpg) and an American red fox skull.jpg), the second labeled *Vulpes fulva* on the plate. H.-M. Ducrotay de Blainville's red fox skull plate.jpg), from a work published between 1839 and 1864, is a lovely old reference too. And OsteologicalsRock's photograph of an island fox skull beside a gray fox skull_compared_with_that_of_a_gray_fox_(left).jpg), shared under CC BY-SA 3.0, puts a replica island fox next to a gray fox skull from central Minnesota.

A fox skull has no single meaning that holds everywhere. What a fox stood for belongs to a particular people, place and time, and one of the clearest documented cases comes from the ground rather than from folklore.

At Motza, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Israel, archaeologists writing in the journal *Antiquity* described a joint burial of humans and foxes, with fox remains placed in the grave of people buried there. The authors interpret the placement as a sign that foxes held symbolic importance in a ritual setting, tied to changing relationships between people and the animals living around them. That is their reading of one site, and a striking one, since fox remains were laid in the grave alongside people.

It does not mean that every fox skull stands for cleverness, protection or death. Those readings come from other times and places, or from modern taste. For how archaeologists read finds like Motza, see what bones tell archaeologists, and for the wider story of what skulls have meant, skull symbolism.

This is general information rather than legal advice; each state and country writes its own rules for fox parts, and those rules get revised.

Foxes are regulated wildlife in some places, and whether you may keep a skull can depend on the state, the species, how the animal died, where it lay and whether it was legally taken. Texas Parks and Wildlife, for example, lists foxes as furbearers and requires a hunting license to take them, with separate rules for commercial sale. North Carolina's Wildlife Resources Commission restricts the sale of wildlife parts from animals found dead and sets specific conditions for fox carcasses and pelts.

Those are two states, not a rule for yours. Confirm the rule with the wildlife agency in the state where the skull turned up before you keep, move, sell or display it. Our story on what to do when you find an animal skull covers the wider federal and state rules, including Wisconsin's rules on clean skulls, and how to clean an animal skull goes through cleaning once you know it is yours to handle. We Dig Skulls sells skull designs, not real skulls.

A few more points about the skull in your hands.

If your skull turns out to be bigger and more dog-like, the coyote skull story is the next stop. If it is short and broad, try the raccoon skull, and if it is small and round-faced, the cat skull. Whatever it is, the found an animal skull story is the place to check before it goes on a shelf.

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