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Arctic Fox

Vulpes lagopus · medium

The arctic fox has the warmest fur of any mammal, and it does not begin to shiver until the temperature falls below roughly minus fifty. Everything about its shape reduces heat loss: short muzzle, short legs, small rounded ears, and a thick tail it curls over its face when it sleeps. Its feet are furred on the soles, which is where the species name lagopus, meaning hare-foot, comes from.

The coat changes with the season, thick and white in winter, thinner and brown-grey in summer, matching snow and then tundra. A coastal colour morph stays slate blue year-round.

In much of its range the fox's fortunes follow lemmings, whose populations boom and crash on a multi-year cycle. In a good year a female may raise a very large litter; in a bad one she may not breed at all. Where lemmings are scarce, foxes scavenge, follow polar bears for the remains of seal kills, and cache food in permafrost.

As the Arctic warms, larger red foxes have pushed north into tundra the arctic fox had to itself, competing for dens and killing the smaller species outright — a slow displacement now visible along much of the southern edge of its range.

Where it lives

Worml lists the arctic fox as native to 8 countries — Canada, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and United States. Its habitat is arctic tundra and sea ice.

Ranges here are reduced to whole countries for playability and exclude introduced populations — see about the data for what that simplification leaves out.

In the game

Arctic Fox is rated medium. To solve the round you need to find any 4 of its 8 listed countries. How scoring works →

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