One of These Foxes Is Real (8 Photos)

By Vidar
Two photographs side by side: Morpho's mural of a red fox leaping above grass in Ludwigsfelde, Germany, and a giant black fox sculpture climbing down a white brick wall in Riga, Latvia.

Spot the real one

One leaps across a wall under a German highway bridge. One climbs out of an old brick building in Riga. In north London, a real fox walks right past a painted one. Eight foxes in five countries, and only one of them is real.


Morpho's mural of a red fox caught in mid-leap above wet grass, with warm light behind it, painted on a concrete wall under a bridge in Ludwigsfelde, Germany.

🦊 A Fox Leaps Through the Grass — By Morpho in Ludwigsfelde, Germany 🇩🇪

Front paws tucked, nose pointed down, this fox is a split second from landing on something small in the grass. Morpho painted it beneath the A10 bridge beside the Ludwig Arkaden as his wall for the seventh Da Bridge Jam. Photo by Yvie’s Never Ending Story.

💡 Fox Fact: That pounce has a name, “mousing.” A Czech study of almost 600 jumps found red foxes mostly leap toward the north-east. Jumps in that direction ended in a kill 73% of the time, against 18% in most other directions.

More: New Street Art With Foxes, Giant Eyes and Future Faces (Vol. 56)

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A real red fox walks along a London pavement past a white wall with a painted orange and black fox, in Matthew Maran's photograph Fox Meets Fox.

📷 “Fox Meets Fox” — Photo by Matthew Maran in London, UK 🇬🇧

This is the real one. The painted fox runs one way and the real fox walks the other, right past it. Matthew Maran had been photographing foxes near his home in north London for over a year and had dreamt of this shot since he first spotted the wall. It took countless hours and many failed attempts, and the shot was Highly Commended in Wildlife Photographer of the Year’s 2018 People’s Choice vote.

More: Fox Meets Fox in London


A giant black fox sculpture with a shaggy coat climbs over the top of a white brick wall and down its corner in Riga, Latvia.

🦊 “Dzimuši brīvībai” — By Aleksandrs and Oļegs Marinohs in Riga, Latvia 🇱🇻

A black fox, five meters tall, slips over the top of an old brick wall and starts down the corner. The title means “Born for Freedom.” Sculptors Aleksandrs and Oļegs Marinohs made it with the animal rights group Dzīvnieku brīvība, and it stands in Riga’s Lastādija creative quarter to speak up for animals kept in cages on fur and factory farms. The group calls it the first sculpture in Latvia made for animals locked up on industrial farms.

💡 Fur Fact: The coat is not fur at all. More than 100 volunteers wove it from metal wire and hemp cord, Dzīvnieku brīvība says.

More: Black Fox in Riga, Latvia

🔗 Visit Dzīvnieku brīvība


DZIA's tall fox drawn in sweeping lines across a black wall in London, its head raised, with a real doorway open in the middle of its body.

🚪 Fox With a Door — By DZIA in London, UK 🇬🇧

DZIA’s fox stretches up the whole wall, and there is a real door right in its middle. The photographer, junepurkiss, wished the door had been closed, because the whole fox would not fit in one shot. The Belgian artist paints wild animals in his own line style, and foxes and birds are his recurring favorites.

More: Fox by DZIA in London

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A painted fox steps through brown three-dimensional graffiti letters on a corner wall, with a gray London skyline behind it.

🦊 A Fox Among Letters — By Odeith in London, UK 🇬🇧

Just off Brick Lane, a fox picks its way through Odeith’s chunky 3D letters as if they were rocks on a hillside. The letters are painted flat on the wall. The fox doesn’t seem to know that.

More: 3D Art by Odeith

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📷 Photo: KylaBorg, “Fox” / Flickr (CC BY 2.0).


Annatomix's bright orange origami-style fox, folded from geometric shapes, sitting on a dark brick bridge pillar in Longbridge, Birmingham.

🦊 Origami Fox — By Annatomix in Birmingham, UK 🇬🇧

This fox looks folded from orange paper, but it is about 15 feet tall and painted on brick. Annatomix painted a group of them for St Modwen Homes in Longbridge, on what the artist called “some of the wettest brickwork I’ve ever had the pleasure of tackling” in an Instagram post. That is why the job took weeks.

More: Origami Fox by Annatomix in Longbridge

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A red fox and a giant panda painted side by side on a long wall in Uberlândia, Brazil, with misty trees and warm orange light behind them.

🐼 The Fox and the Panda — By Ircles Graffiti and Jhon RM in Uberlândia, Brazil 🇧🇷

A fox and a giant panda share one wall, nose to nose, under a roll of razor wire. Ircles Graffiti and Jhon RM painted it for Jardim Urbano UDI at Beco do Planalto. In the wild, these two live on different continents.

🔗 Follow Ircles Graffiti and Jhon RM on Instagram


BUBLEGUM's red fox curled up asleep with ornamental, swirling fur across a purple and pink wall on a small building in Nœux-les-Mines, France.

😴 “Le Renard Ornemental” — By BUBLEGUM in Nœux-les-Mines, France 🇫🇷

After all that leaping and climbing, one fox is simply asleep, curled into a circle with fur that turns into Baroque swirls. BUBLEGUM painted it in 2026 with the Créateurs de Bonheurs, Béthune-Bruay Tourism notes, at 14 Rue de Béthune.

🔗 Follow BUBLEGUM on Instagram

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