It is simply amazing what I sometimes learn...
... from the folks on Mediev-L, a list server for Medievalists. Here is one about an animal you won't be seeing here in Wilkes. Or if you do, let us know ASAP.

In modern Arabic, fanak is (according to the Wehr-Cohen Dictionary) the English fennec (really the same word), “a very small nocturnal fox, Fennecus zerda, inhabiting deserts of N Africa and Arabia, having pale fur and enormous ears” (Collins English Dictionary).

Cute fellow:

http://www.naturalworlds.org/wolf/canids/Fennecus_zerda.htm