Fox or Coyote?

[LEAKYSEALS951]

This morning he strutted right through the backyard.
He was larger than most fox's I've seen. Much bigger than a cat. More like small/ medium dog size. Much uglier. Much mangier. Tail hair was gone. He had an ass like a chupacabra with a lower rear gait, like a hyena. In the last pic, because of backlighting, he looks like a red fox with black legs stockings, but when he was closer, he didn't really have the those dazzling red fox colors. I couldn't tell if it was a coyote or a mangy fox.

I grabbed my trusty camera with a g#$d#$% 16-35mm WIDE ANGLE lense (the worst for this type of shot) and started shooting. I couldn't get to my zoom lenses in time.

So at full crop... here's what I got.

First of all- 16-35mm pic of yard-












Thoughts?

[Sooner or later]

I say Wile E Coyote after a ride on an Acme rocket

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Nice work! Explains the tail.

[Sooner or later]

Perfect!

[stomachmonkey]

Looks like a mangy fox

[Sebscst]

Chupacabra.

[scottmandue]

Hard to tell without anything to give it scale, looks small for a yote, coat and ears look like a fox, tail is definitely not fox like but could be mange?

[rwest]

Hyena is my first thought!

[Gogar]

I think the nose looks too short for a coyote, my vote is for a dog or a fox with mange.

[RANDY P]

Coyote runs quicker. new mod V8 is awesome.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

Hard to tell without anything to give it scale, looks small for a yote, coat and ears look like a fox, tail is definitely not fox like but could be mange?

I sent my forensic team into the field and took measurements of sticks in the picture.
Using the miracle of modern computer science (photoshop), I superimposed the sticks on the suspect to get a rough idea of the dimensions.

I'm going to really rough guess about 24 inches tall.

[kach22i]

My guess is a very large mangy fox, and very old.

I once saw an absolutely huge turkey vulture, as old as time and mangy as all heck.

[Baz]

You could always set up a trail camera and some food and see if it comes back. Get a better set of images.

Or not.

[HardDrive]

As above. Fox with mange.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Looks like a mangy fox

That's my thought as well. Looks very fox like to me, but without the bushy tail

[scottmandue]

Can you get your hands on a road runner?

[Jeff Higgins]

Best way to find out would have been to shoot it.

[74-911]

Definitely a Chupacabra ? As remarked on in OP

[Jolly Amaranto]

What was it's behavior? Coyotes tend to run in a straight line while foxes zig zag all over the place trying to pick up scent trails.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

I'm going to really rough guess about 24 inches tall.

I'm sure there are different types of fox depending on region but the foxes around here are not that large.