This heavily spotted fox cub was recently posted for sale on one of the taxidermy pages on FB. I have never seen a cub this heavily spotted and thought she was very unique looking. Not sure what part of the country she was taken, but the person selling her claimed to regularly shoot white spotted foxes, so sounds like it's common in that local population.
The person who bought her also sent me some additional close up photos of her markings;
Photos by Holly McCormack
Hopefully the mystery of what causes the spots will one day be solved. With how common it seems to be in some populations my guess is it's a unique colour pattern that only seems to occur in European foxes. I've been collecting photos of foxes with these markings from around the internet, which can be seen here. Where possible I've included data on each photo of the fox's location and the year.
What a shame, but a great find. She is a little beauty. I have noticed spotted foxes generally, only come to our attention as taxidermy, we have very few reports of these foxes from members of the public.