Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
January 9, 1822
Primary Source Reference:
Poulson's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 9 Jan 1822
Additional Source Text:
On a list of specimens "mostly obtained from high up the Missouri by Titian Peale" during the Long Expedition.
Notes:
This previously unknown species is the swift fox (Vulpes velox). Thomas Say, who first described it, wrote: "It runs with extraordinary swiftness, so much so, that when at full speed its course has been, by the hunters, compared to the flight of a bird skimming the surface of the earth. We had opportunities of seeing it run with the antelope, and appearances sanctioned the belief, that in fleetness it even exceeded that extraordinary animal." (Edwin James, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819 and '20: By Order of the Hon. J.C. Calhoun, Sec'y of War: Under the Command of Major Stephen H. Long, vol. 1 [Philadelphia, 1823], pp. 486n-487n)
Titian Ramsay Peale (1799-1885) was engaged as assistant naturalist on the Long Expedition (May 1819-Nov 1820). His services were "required in collecting specimens suitable to be preserved, in drafting and delineating them, in preserving the skins, &c. of animals, and in sketching the statifications of rocks, earths &c. as presented on the declivities of precipices." (Ibid., p. 3)
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Peale's Common Name:
Fox
Current Common Name:
Swift fox
Current Scientific Name
Vulpes velox
