Arctic fox

Arctic Fox

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Arctic fox

The Arctic Fox (Alopex lagopus or Vulpes lagopus), also known as the White Fox or Snow Fox, is a small fox

Fox

A fox is an animal belonging to any one of about 27 species of small to medium-sized Canidae, characterized by possessing a long, narrow snout, and a bushy tail, or brush....
native to cold Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is the region around the Earth's North Pole, opposite the Antarctica region around the South Pole. The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Greenland , Russia, the United States , Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland....
regions of the Northern Hemisphere

Northern Hemisphere

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of the equator?the word sphere literally means 'half sphere'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator....
and is common throughout the Arctic tundra

Tundra

In physical geography, tundra is an biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes from Kildin Sami tund?r, which means "uplands, treeless mountain tract." There are two types of tundra: Arctic tundra and alpine tundra....
biome

Biome

Biomes are Climateally and geographically defined areas of ecologically similar climatic conditions such as Community of plants, animals, and Soil biology, and are often referred to as ecosystems....
. Although it is often assigned to its own genus

Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
Alopex, the definitive mammal taxonomy list, as well as genetic

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding....
evidence places it in Vulpes
Vulpes

Vulpes is a genus of the Canidae family. It includes the true foxes, although there are species in other genera whose common names include the word "fox"....
with the majority of the other foxes.

Arctic Fox has evolved to live in some of the most frigid extremes on the planet.

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Adaptations

The Arctic Fox has evolved to live in some of the most frigid extremes on the planet. Among its adaptation

Adaptation

Adaptation is the process, which takes place under natural selection, whereby an organism becomes better suited to its habitat. Also, the term may refer to some characteristic which stands out as being especially significant in the organism's survival....
s for cold survival are its deep, thick fur (the warmest of any mammal

Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
), a system of countercurrent heat exchange

Countercurrent exchange

Countercurrent exchange along with Concurrent exchange comprise the mechanisms used to transfer some property of a fluid from one flowing current of fluid to another across a semipermeable membrane or thermally-conductive material between them....
in the circulation of paws to retain core temperature

Core temperature

#REDIRECT Normal human body temperature...
, and a good supply of body fat

Adipose tissue

In histology, adipose tissue or fat is loose connective tissue composed of adipocytes. Adipose tissue is derived from lipoblasts. Its main role is to store energy in the form of fat, although it also cushions and Thermal insulation the body....
. The fox has a low surface area to volume ratio

Surface area to volume ratio

In chemical reactions involving a solid material, the surface area to volume ratio is an important factor for the reactivity, that is, the rate at which the chemical reaction will proceed....
, as evidenced by its generally rounded body shape, short muzzle and legs, and short, thick ears. Since less of its surface area is exposed to the cold, less heat escapes the body. Its furry paws allow it to walk on ice in search of food. The Arctic Fox has such keen hearing that it can precisely locate the position of prey under the snow. When it finds prey, it pounces and punches through the snow to catch its victim. Its fur changes colour with the seasons: in the winter it is white to blend in with snow, while in the summer months it changes to brown.

Reproduction

The Arctic Fox tends to be active in early September to early May. The gestation period

Gestation period

I.H The gestation period in a viviparous animal is the length of its gestation. In humans this is 266 days , but varies for other animals.Gestation period is measured from fertilisation to birth....
is 53 days. Litters tend to average 6-7 pups but may be as many as 11. Both the mother and the father help to raise their young. The females leave the family and form their own groups and the males stay with the family.

Foxes tend to form monogamous

Monogamy

Monogamy is the state of having only one husband, wife, or sexual partner at any one time. The word monogamy comes from the Greek word monos "?????", which means one or alone, and the Greek word gamos "?????", which means marriage or union....
pairs in the breeding season. Litters of between 4 and 11 kits are born in the early summer. The parents raise the young in a large den

Lair

Lair may refer to:* Lair * an underground or other enclosed place that an animal uses to hide* an enclosed placed used by a mythological creature such as a dragon...
. Dens can be complex underground networks, housing many generations of foxes. Young from a previous year's litter may stay with the parents to help rear younger siblings. The cubs are initially brownish; as they become older they turn white. They can walk on ice without freezing because they have thick hair on their paws.

Diet

The Arctic Fox will generally eat any meat it can find, including lemming

Lemming

Lemmings are small rodents, usually found in or near the Arctic, in tundra biomes. They are Subnivean and together with the voles and muskrats, they make up the Family Arvicolinae , which forms part of the largest mammal radiation by far, the superfamily Muroidea, which also includes the rats, mouse, hamsters, and gerbils....
s, Arctic Hare

Arctic Hare

The Arctic Hare is a hare which is largely adapted to polar and mountainous habitats. It was once considered a subspecies of the Mountain Hare, but it is now regarded as a separate species....
, reptiles and amphibians

Herpetology

Herpetology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians and of reptiles .Herpetology is concerned with poikilothermic, or ectothermic, tetrapods....
, egg

Egg (food)

An egg is a round or oval body laid by the female of many animals, consisting of an ovum surrounded by layers of membranes and an outer casing, which acts to nourish and protect a developing embryo and its nutrient reserves....
s, and carrion

Carrion

Carrion refers to the carcass of a dead animal. Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion-eaters, or scavengers, include Hyenas, Vultures, Virginia Opossum, Tasmanian Devils, Black Bears, Komodo Dragons, Bald Eagles, Raccoons and Blue-tongued lizards....
. Lemmings are the most common prey. A family of foxes can eat dozens of lemmings each day. During April and May the Arctic Fox also preys on Ringed Seal

Ringed Seal

The ringed seal , also known as the jar seal and as netsik or nattiq by the Inuit, is an earless seal inhabiting the northern coasts....
pups when the young animals are confined to a snow den and are relatively helpless. Fish beneath the ice are also part of its diet. When its normal prey is scarce, the Arctic Fox scavenges the leftovers of larger predators, such as the polar bear

Polar Bear

The polar bear is a bear native to the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas. The world's largest carnivore found on land, and shares the title of largest land predator with the Kodiak Bear, an adult male weighs around , while an adult female is about half that size....
, even though the bears' prey includes the Arctic Fox itself.

Size

The length of the head and body is in the male and in the female. The tail is long in the male and long in the female. It is high at the shoulder. Males weigh while females can weigh .

Subspecies

Besides the nominate, there are three subspecies

Subspecies

In biology, subspecies is the taxonomic rank immediately subordinate to a species. A subspecies is a taxonomic group which is less distinct than the Common descent or species from which it originates....
of this fox:

Bering Islands Arctic Fox, Vulpes lagopus beringensis
Iceland Arctic Fox, Vulpes lagopus fuliginosus
Pribilof Islands Arctic Fox, Vulpes lagopus pribilofensis

Greenland Arctic Fox, Vulpes Lagopus foragorapusis

Population and Distribution

The Arctic Fox has a circumpolar range, meaning that it is found throughout the entire Arctic, including the outer edges of Greenland, Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
, Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
, and Svalbard

Svalbard

Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It consists of a group of islands ranging from 74th parallel north to 81st parallel north, and 10th meridian east to 35th meridian east....
, as well as in Subarctic

Subarctic

The Subarctic is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic and covering much of Alaska, Canada and Siberia, the north of Scandinavia, northern Mongolia and the Chinese province of Heilongjiang....
and alpine

Alpine climate

Alpine climate is the average weather for a region above the tree line. The climate becomes colder at high elevations—this characteristic is described by the adiabatic lapse rate of air: air tends to get colder as it rises, since it expands....
areas, such as Iceland

Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
and mainland alpine Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a historical and geographical subregion in northern Europe that includes the Scandinavian Peninsula. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark; some authorities also include Finland and some might even include Iceland....
. The conservation status of the species is good, except for the Scandinavian mainland population. It is acutely endangered there, despite decades of legal protection from hunting and persecution. The total population estimate in all of Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
and Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland , is a Nordic countries situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland....
is a mere 120 adult individuals.

The Arctic Fox is the only native land mammal to Iceland. It came to the isolated North Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres . It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface....
island at the end of the last ice age

Ice age

The general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers....
, walking over the frozen sea.

The abundance of the Arctic Fox species tends to fluctuate in a cycle along with the population of lemmings. Because the fox reproduces very quickly and often dies young, population levels are not seriously impacted by trapping. The Arctic Fox has, nonetheless, been eradicated from many areas where humans are settled.

The Arctic Fox is losing ground to the larger Red Fox

Red Fox

The Red Fox is a mammal of the order Carnivora. In the British Isles, where there are no longer any other native wild canids, it is referred to simply as "the fox"....
. Historically, the Gray Wolf

Gray Wolf

The grey wolf or gray wolf , also known as the timber wolf or simply wolf, is the largest wild member of the Canidae family. It is an ice age survivor originating during the Late Pleistocene around 300,000 years ago....
has kept Red Fox numbers down, but as the wolf has been hunted to near extinction

Extinction

In biology and ecology, extinction is the death of every member of a species or group of taxon. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species ....
in much of its former range, the Red Fox population has grown larger, and it has taken over the niche of top predator

Apex predator

Apex predators are predators that, as adults, are not normally preyed upon in the wild by other large animals in significant parts of their range....
. In areas of northern Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
there are programs in place that allow hunting of the Red Fox in the Arctic Fox's previous range.

As with many other game species, the best sources of historical and large scale population data are hunting bag records and questionnaires. There are several potential sources of error in such data collections. In addition, numbers vary widely between years due to the large population fluctuations. However, the total population of the Arctic Fox must be in the order of several hundred thousand animals.

The world population is thus not endangered, but two Arctic Fox subpopulations are. One is on Medny Island

Medny Island

Medny Island , is the second largest island in the Commander Islands east of Russia. The island was uninhabited until the early 20th century, when Aleuts came from Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands to Medny Island....
(Commander Islands, Russia), which was reduced by some 85-90%, to around 90 animals, as a result of mange caused by an ear tick introduced by dogs in the 1970s. The population is currently under treatment with antiparasitic drugs, but the result is still uncertain.

The other threatened population is the one in Fennoscandia

Fennoscandia

Fennoscandia and Fenno-Scandinavia are geographic and geological terms used to describe the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Kola Peninsula, Karelia and Finland....
(Norway, Sweden, Finland and Kola Peninsula

Kola Peninsula

The Kola Peninsula is a peninsula in the far north of Russia, part of the Murmansk Oblast. It borders upon the Barents Sea on the North and the White Sea on the East and South....
). This population decreased drastically around the start of the 20th century as a result of extreme fur prices which caused severe hunting also during population lows. The population has remained at a low density for more than 90 years, with additional reductions during the last decade. The total population estimate for 1997 is around 60 adults in Sweden, 11 adults in Finland and 50 in Norway. From Kola, there are indications of a similar situation, suggesting a population of around 20 adults. The Fennoscandian population thus numbers a total of 140 breeding adults. Even after local lemming peaks, the Arctic Fox population tends to collapse back to levels dangerously close to non-viability.