Arctic Fox by Hit4Life and LAwebTek

Arctic Fox by Hit4Life and LAwebTek

Arctic Fox - one of the original downloads from Zoo Tek.

Because of its thick coat, it is able to survive in freezing cold temperatures. Thick hair on the pads of their feet protect their feet from freezing and help them to walk on the ice. The Arctic fox can walk on ice without slipping. It uses ice floes to travel in search of food in the winter.

It can curl up in the snow and cover its nose and face with its bushy tail to keep warm. In the summer the fox will hide food in its den or under rocks. This is how it stores food for later use.

The Arctic fox is small (about the same weight as a cat) with short legs and short rounded furry ears. The bushy tail is about 30 cm. long. Its bushy fur coat makes it look much larger than it really is. Near the end of summer the grayish brown coat of the Arctic fox begins to grow thicker. The color of the fur turns gray and then white. The oily fur sheds water and helps to keep the fox dry.The female may have 4 to 11 pups. The average litter is 6 or 7 pups. She can have two litters a year. The babies are born in a den or burrow in late spring. A baby fox is the size of a kitten. Both parents take care of the blind cubs. At two weeks the cubs open their eyes. At three weeks they go outside and begin to explore.

To feed a litter of ten the parents must kill about thirty lemmings a day. When their family is almost grown, the parents feed them over a hundred lemmings a day! The young foxes are taught how to hunt and are independent by fall. The young males leave the family and form their own groups. The young females stay with the family group.

They prey on voles, lemmings, hares, ground squirrels, birds and birds' eggs. Foxes that live near the coast feed on shellfish, sea urchins and other shore animals. They check the shoreline for dead seals, whales, and dead fish . When meat is not available the Arctic fox eats fruit and berries.

The Arctic fox will even kill baby seals if the fox can find the seal's den in the snow .

The Arctic fox walks along the top of the snow and listens for small animals running under the snow. When they hear something, they jump up and down to break through the snow with their front paws. Once they break through, they can grab their prey.

Updated 2010-10-30

Just to save space with less in zip and smaller image.

Nothing new.

Updated: July 25, 2009 to allow the arctic fox to swim on water terrain without ZT crashing and to change the ztd name because there are multiple arctic foxes amongst the different sites.

Updated: January 15, 2021 by fern to stop the arctic fox from disliking itself.

Current arctic fox_h4_LA.ztd dated 15 January 2021

Note: Previous ztd names: arctic fox.ztd, ArcticFoxbyHit4LifeandLAwebTek.ztd