 The species is Eurasian in origin, and may have evolved from either "Vulpes alopecoides" or the related Chinese "V. chikushanensis", both of which lived during the Middle Villafranchian.The earliest fossil specimens of "V. vulpes" were uncovered in Baranya, Hungary dating from 3.4-1.8 million years ago.The ancestral species was likely smaller than the current one, as the earliest red fox fossils are smaller than modern populations.