{"id":824220,"date":"2026-08-24T12:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T12:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/824220\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T12:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T12:58:10","slug":"rare-black-fox-discovered-in-chicagos-north-suburbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/824220\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare black fox discovered in Chicago’s north suburbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most red foxes are \u2014 predictably, given the name of the breed \u2014 reddish in color, skewing orange.<\/p>\n

But, in Northbrook, an unusual variant of red fox has been slinking about: One with fur that\u2019s almost all black, coloration wildlife experts say is quite rare and the result of a genetic quirk.<\/p>\n

Believed to be a male of about 15 pounds, it\u2019s been seen in a number of places in the northern suburb over the last year or two, according to the village\u2019s animal control officer, Gina Manski.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just got a picture a couple days ago\u201d of the animal, Manski said, courtesy of a police officer who snapped a shot and sent it her way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get a ton of photos of him\u201d from locals, she said. \u201cEither they don\u2019t know what it is, or it\u2019s, like, \u2018Look at this cool fox!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s seen it in person just once, last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was limping on a back leg,\u201d Manski said, though the creature was nonetheless able to hop a five-foot chain-link fence and dart away.<\/p>\n

The limp is now gone, so the fox has apparently recovered from whatever injury it had.<\/p>\n

Foxes like this are called \u201cmelanistic\u201d because they have elevated levels of melanin that determines pigmentation, experts say.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A rare almost-all-black red fox, shown in Northbrook last year.<\/p>\n

Albinism \u201cis basically the opposite of that,\u201d said Seth Magle of Lincoln Park Zoo\u2019s Urban Wildlife Institute.<\/p>\n

The Northbrook creature is \u201cmostly black with silver trim,\u201d Manski said, adding there\u2019s another red fox in town that is \u201cred but has black shading on his back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Will County Forest Preserve District says: \u201cWhile most red foxes are the rusty red color we are so familiar with, not all are, and this often takes us by surprise. Some red foxes are the usual reddish-brown but with a black stripe down their backs and another across their shoulders, while others can be silvery or nearly black in color.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Northbrook<\/p>\n

Northbrook animal control officer Gina Manski shown on the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cSilvery or black foxes are called silver foxes, and they are much more rare, occurring in only about 10% of red foxes,\u201d according to the agency. Other estimates have them at less than 1%.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not to be confused with gray foxes. That\u2019s a different species, generally smaller than red foxes and much less abundant in Illinois, with the unusual characteristic of climbing trees.<\/p>\n

Cook County Forest Preserve District wildlife biologist Chris Anchor said this about the genetic mutation that makes red foxes black: \u201cWe\u2019ve seen it in red fox, we\u2019ve seen it in gray fox, we\u2019ve seen it in coyotes, we\u2019ve seen it in deer\u201d as well as gray squirrels.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A melanistic red fox in Northbrook, taking a rest.<\/p>\n

A black-colored red fox kit was spotted in far southwest suburban Lockport in 2024, as Chicago Sun-Times outdoors columnist Dale Bowman noted at the time.<\/p>\n

In 2025, another young black fox was spotted in Yellowstone National Park near the Old Faithful geyser, according to the Cowboy State Daily publication.<\/p>\n

Northbrook has a population of about 35,000 people and a fair amount of open land, from golf courses and wooded patches to cemeteries. A branch of the Chicago River and railroad tracks serve as wildlife corridors.<\/p>\n

But Manski says the red foxes in her community are often in residential areas.<\/p>\n

Social media and news reports have conveyed red fox sightings in recent years in the Beverly, Humboldt Park, Norwood Park and Rogers Park neighborhoods of Chicago in addition to the Loop and the Medical District on the West Side. Suburbs including Bensenville, Elmhurst, Lockport, Park Ridge, Plainfield and St. Charles also played host to the creatures, according to online sources and interviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegendary for their cunning cleverness, red fox are equally at home in the trackless wilderness as they are in a tract-housing development,\u201d according to the National Park Service.<\/p>\n

But they\u2019re not as ubiquitous as they might sometimes seem, Magle said, as his research shows their natural, larger canine competitor, coyotes, are flourishing much more in the city and inner-ring suburbs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A competitor of the red fox for food, the coyote, shown earlier this year downtown near Lake Michigan.<\/p>\n

Unlike coyotes, which have adapted well to the urban and suburban landscape, foxes aren\u2019t usually a threat to household pets such as cats and dogs. Rather, foxes are known to feast on rabbits and squirrels, and nuisance animals such as rats and mice.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed foxes prefer rodents and rabbits, but they will also eat birds, amphibians and fruit,\u201d according to the National Wildlife Federation. \u201cRed foxes will also steal food from garbage cans or farms. Their ability to find food, even during the winter, is one reason why red foxes have a reputation for being cunning and smart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another culinary aspect, Anchor said, is they\u2019ll \u201cwipe out a whole litter of baby skunks and eat them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magle said of red foxes and other wildlife: \u201cWe get a lot more benefits from living around these species than drawbacks and detriments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such wild creatures help humans fulfill \u201can intrinsic need to connect with the natural world,\u201d Magle said. \u201cHow cool it is to have the capacity to feel wonder, to feel awe\u201d by their presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s especially exciting when it\u2019s something we don\u2019t expect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most red foxes are \u2014 predictably, given the name of the breed \u2014 reddish in color, skewing orange.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-824220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}