. The Canadian field-naturalist. Natural history. 2001 Vergara: Parental Roles in Red Foxes 25 was not arbitrary but triggered by the sudden move of the foxes to a new unknown or unobservable den. Figure 1 shows the times at which the different fami- lies were observed in relation to the general develop- ment of the cubs (diagram design borrowed from Malcom and Marten 1982). The Highway den was only observed for 38 hours (four sessions, between 8 and 10 hours in duration each, distributed in one and a half weeks), and the male was never seen. The lack of male visitation at this den might be a
. The Canadian field-naturalist. Natural history. 2001 Vergara: Parental Roles in Red Foxes 25 was not arbitrary but triggered by the sudden move of the foxes to a new unknown or unobservable den. Figure 1 shows the times at which the different fami- lies were observed in relation to the general develop- ment of the cubs (diagram design borrowed from Malcom and Marten 1982). The Highway den was only observed for 38 hours (four sessions, between 8 and 10 hours in duration each, distributed in one and a half weeks), and the male was never seen. The lack of male visitation at this den might be a reflection of the relatively low number of hours of observation of this family com- pared to the other families (average of 98 h). Similarly I observed the Tweed family for 44 hours (four 12-hour sessions distributed in two weeks), and obtained additional 44 hours of recorded observa- tions (a total of 88 hours) by documentary makers John and Janet Foster (see Table 1). I never observed the male, but he visited the den three times during the 44 hours prior to my arrival (John and Janet Foster, personal communication). Thus, statements concerning male visitation rates and feeding rates throughout this paper will be based on the remaining six families. Results Visiting Rates Any adult fox within 0 to 100 m from the den site was recorded as visiting the den. In general, adults visited during all hours of the day, but predominately in early morning (up to 3 hours after sunrise) and evening (2 or 3 hours before dusk). Although visits in the middle of the day were not infrequent, they were usually shorter in duration. Figure 2 shows the frequency of visits per hour for each adult. A Mann-Whitney U test revealed signifi- cantly more visits/hour by females than males (W = p ). Excluding the Tweed and Highway families, male visitation rates varied from visits/hour at the Railway den, to visits/hour at Gaines (the adult male in this family visited the kits more often t
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