Status of gray fox Lycalopex griseus (Gray, 1837) (Mammalia: Canidae) from Peru

The presence of the gray fox Lycalopex griseus (Gray, 1837) in the southern coast of Peru is supported based on external and cranial morphological information. This species is compared with L. sechurae (Thomas, 1900), a fox of similar size, but distinguished from it by a snout greater length and a smaller breadth of the skull. A Principal Component Analysis supports this difference. It is suggested that the gray fox populations in Peru could be a new subspecies of L. griseus because its disjunt distribution with respect to other subspecies from which are separated by the Atacama Desert, a remarkable biogeographical barrier in northern Chile.