Ontogeny of Dominance in Free‐living Red Foxes

Abstract We established the ethogram of fox pups of free‐living foxes after emergence from the den. We recorded the reactions of the pups during encounters to determine their social status and documented the relationship between social status and social play. The ethogram comprised 12 behavioural classes including 64 behavioural acts. ‘Moving’ and ‘exploration’ were the most observed classes with a frequency of occurrence higher than 20%. Most behavioural acts occurred at frequencies ranging from 0.5% to 5%. The intra‐litter hierarchy was linear. Social play was the predominant type of social activity among pups, and induced the maintenance of dominance relationships among them. Adult—juvenile interactions (‘relation with an adult’ and ‘suckling’) could depend on the social rank of the juveniles. Juvenile‐juvenile contacts allowing strong social bonds to develop between littermates (‘tactile communication’ and ‘comfort social behaviour licking and nibbling fur’) were not correlated with the social rank of the juveniles.