The hoary fox can often be spotted sprinting through Brazil’s Cerrado, the world’s most biodiverse savanna. Despite this, not much is known about the small canid, says researcher Frederico Lemos in a recent video produced by contributors Augusto Gomes, Julia Lemos Lima and the Mongabay video team.

Lemos and fellow researcher Fernanda Cavalcanti have made it their lifelong mission to study and conserve the hoary fox (Lycalopex vetulus), found only in Brazil. Their shared love for the fox eventually brought them close as a couple.

“It’s been 22 years of scientific work related to the knowledge and conservation of the species,” Lemos tells Mongabay. “I fell in love with foxes 20 years ago and I fell in love with Fer 17 years ago.”

The hoary fox belongs to the genus Lycalopex, which are more closely related to wolves and jackals than actual foxes. With fewer than 20,000 mature individuals in the wild, Brazil’s sole endemic carnivore is now considered near threatened on the IUCN Red List.

Lemos and Cavalcanti study the hoary fox in agroecosystems, or agricultural environments that retain considerable levels of biodiversity and wild species.

To understand the foxes’ lives a bit better, Lemos, Cavalcanti and their team are trying to answer how long they live, what they eat, and what threats they face. The duo has captured hoary foxes from the wild, collected blood samples, and fitted some of them with GPS collars to monitor their movements. They’ve also set up camera traps in areas the species frequent, including outside an armadillo burrow that was being used by a hoary fox and its pups.

Lemos says through such data gathering, they’ve been able to learn many things, like the fact that hoary foxes in disturbed pasture areas have a poorer diet than those in protected areas. They’ve also learned that the species faces many risks, from habitat loss due to agribusiness, mining and charcoal production, to diseases transmitted by domestic animals. Cavalcanti also says the canids are among the most run-over animals on Brazil’s roads.

“After monitoring more than 60 individuals, we identified that 47% of the deaths of hoary foxes, crab-eating foxes and maned wolves are due to anthropogenic issues,” Lemos tells Mongabay.

The researchers also made an estimate of the viability of hoary foxes in the Cumari region, a pasture area that’s part of the Cerrado biome and representative of central Brazil. “The probability of the fox becoming extinct in this kind of landscape is 80% over 50 years,” Lemos says.

Watch the full video: “A closer look at the unknown Brazilian fox” by Mongabay.

Banner image of a hoary fox by Augusto Gomes for Mongabay.