The internet hive mind is deliriously OMFG excited about a new video by a pair of musicians you probably haven't heard of called "The Fox." (You can watch it here.) Yes, it's weird and thumping and outrageously silly, in very much the same way Psy's "Gangnam Style" was when it first swept through YouTube over a year ago.
To that end, "The Fox" is boring and derivative — the kind of unimaginative rehash that would not exist today had a cartoonish Korean rapper not galloped into the American pop culture zeitgeist on an imaginary horse. But the dopey music video does ask an interesting question (which it answers incorrectly, by the way): What kind of sound does a fox make?
The answer: It kinda depends!
Hunters often use fox calls when they're trying to shoot and kill the beautiful, furry-tailed canids only to subsequently not eat them. The 37 different fox species — such the cat-like red fox, or the sleek and cunning arctic fox — can be found in diverse habitats ranging from forests to deserts to mountaintops all over the world.
The range of sounds the omnivorous creatures can make is striking, too: When in danger, some species like the red tail fox have a chirpy bark. Some species can let loose a shrill, bird-like scream, like so:
The following video has a pretty comprehensive overview of the kinds of sounds foxes make, including their mating calls:
And for no good reason whatsoever, here is a happy strawberry fennec fox (the world's smallest species) being amazing and adorable: