South American fox South American fox The South American foxes ("Lycalopex"), commonly called "raposa" in Portuguese, or "zorro" in Spanish, are a genus of the family Canidae from South America. Despite their name, they are not true foxes, but are a unique canid genus related to wolves and jackals, which some somewhat resemble foxes due to convergent evolution. The South American gray fox, "Lycalopex griseus", is the most common species, and is known for its large ears and a highly marketable, russet-fringed pelt. The oldest known fossils belonging to the genus were discovered in Chile, and date from 2.0 to 2.5 million years
Spanish orthography ) of a vowel sequence prevents it from being a diphthong (i.e., it signals a hiatus): for example, and have two syllables each. A word with final stress is called oxytone (or in traditional Spanish grammar texts); a word with penultimate stress is called paroxytone ( or ); a word with antepenultimate stress (stress on the third-to-last syllable) is called proparoxytone (). A word with preantepenultimate stress (on the fourth last syllable) or earlier does not have a common linguistic term in English, but in Spanish receives the name . (Spanish words can be stressed only on one of the