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Endearing bat-eared foxes of the Maasai Mara, 2019

Endearing bat-eared foxes of the Maasai Mara. One field guide says the overall impression of these engaging animals is of a small, fluffy dog with huge ears. Pretty accurate! They are quite skittish so challenging to film but great fun to watch.

The bat-eared fox stand around 30cm high at the shoulder. Their main prey is mainly harvester termites and their dense fur protects from bites from these and other insects. Interestingly, they have 46-50 sharp, cusped teeth – the largest number known for any non-marsupial land mammal. Amazingly, the mandible can chop up and down more than five times a second. With so many teeth hard-shelled and pincered insects are macerated instantaneously. You can see and hear this striking feeding on this film.