Alopex Kaup, 1829 . Skizz. Entwickel. Gesch. Nat. Syst. Europ. Theirwelt, 1:85.

TYPE SPECIES: Canis lagopus Linnaeus, 1758, by monotypy (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 1956a; Melville and Smith, 1987).

COMMENTS: Bobrinskii et al. (1965) considered Alopex a subgenus of Vulpes; Van Gelder (1978) considered it a subgenus of Canis .