Cozumel’s Forgotten Fox: Rediscovering a Species on the Brink of Extinction

The first photograph ever captured of a Cozumel fox (Urocyon sp.), uploaded to iNaturalist in September 2023. For a species long thought to be possibly extinct or at best extremely rare, this record provided the first visual confirmation that the fox was persisting on the island. Photo Credit: Rafael Chacón. 

Photographs recently published in the journal, Neotropical Biology and Conservation is giving the world its first-ever look at the Cozumel dwarf fox (Urocyon sp.), an undescribed species previously presumed extinct.
With their existence and persistence confirmed, the question now is: can the species still be saved?