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| Arctic Fox
Lower Risk
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| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
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| Alopex lagopus (Linnaeus, 1758) |
Arctic foxes have coats that come in two distinct color schemes. Foxes of the white scheme are white in the winter and in the summer are dull brown, remaining whitish underneath. Foxes of the blue scheme are light gray in the winter, and in the summer are gray with a bluish tint.
Arctic foxes tend to be 50 to 60 cm long, not including a 30-cm tail. They are 20 to 30 cm tall at the shoulder, and usually weigh from 3 to 6 kg. Thus, they are about the size of a domestic cat.
The species name, lagopus, means "rabbit foot," a reference to the thick hair on the pads of the animal's feet. The hair helps reduce heat loss into snow and ice, and it improves traction.
Arctic foxes eat a wide variety of things, including lemmingSee also: Lemmings (computer game Dicrostonyx Lemmus Synaptomys Myopus Incomplete listing: see vole Lemmings are small rodents, usually found in or near the Arctic. Together with the voles and muskrats, they make up the subfamily Arvicolinae (also known as, birdFor other meanings of bird see bird (disambiguation). Many see text Birds are bipedal, warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrates characterized primarily by feathers, forelimbs modified as wings, and hollow bones. There are almost 9000 known species of birds ins and their eggIn some animals, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum. It nourishes and protects the embryo. Oviparous animals are animals that lay eggs, with little or no other development within the mother. This is the reproductive way of manys, carrionCarrion is the carcass of a dead animal that becomes food for other scavenging animals such as hyenas or Tasmanian Devils. Some plants and fungi fake the scent of carrion to attract insects to aid in reproduction. These include the Titan arum and stinkhor, and plantGreen algae land plants (embryophytes non-vascular embryophytes Hepatophyta liverworts Anthocerophyta hornworts Bryophyta mosses vascular plants (tracheophytes seedless vascular plants Lycopodiophyta clubmosses Equisetophyta horsetails Pteridophyta "true"s. The most important of these foods is the lemming. A family of foxes can eat dozens of lemmings each day. When their normal prey is scarce, Arctic foxes have been known to scavenge the leftovers of larger predators, such as polar bears, even though polar bears' prey includes the Arctic fox itself.
The foxes tend to form monogamousIn monogamy a person has only one spouse at a time (as opposed to polygamy). The practice of restricting sexual contact to a single partner (married or not) for a limited period of time, then ending that relationship before beginning another (though in pr pairs in the breeding season. Litters of about half a dozen to a dozen whelps are born in the early summer, a very large litter size for mammals. The parents raise the young in a large den.