Animal · Algeria, Libya, Egypt
Fennec fox
Vulpes zerda — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The fennec fox is the smallest fox in the world, a pale desert animal whose ears grow almost as long as its whole head. It sleeps underground through the burning day and comes out to hunt insects and lizards once the sun has set.
Picture credit: Drew Avery (CC BY 2.0) · Darylnovak (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Mark Dumont (CC BY 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the fennec fox live?
Home: Sand deserts and dry scrub across the Sahara.
In the wild it lives in these countries: Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Sudan.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown: about 35-40 cm long, tail 25 cm, ears up to 10 cm. It weighs about 1.2 kilograms. On the menu: both plants and meat.
The story behind it
A fennec fox weighs about as much as a bag of sugar, yet its ears can be ten centimetres tall. Those ears do two jobs at once: they pick up the faint scratching of beetles and lizards under the sand, and they let body heat escape into the cool night air. Thick fur grows on the soles of its feet, so the fox can run over sand that would burn bare skin. Fennec foxes live in small family groups and dig long burrows with several entrances, where they sleep through the blazing middle of the day. They hardly ever need to drink, because most of the water they need comes from the food they eat.
Find it on the globe
Fennec fox is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How big is a fennec fox?
The fennec is the smallest fox of all: about 35 to 40 centimetres long, with a bushy tail of another 25 centimetres. It weighs a little over one kilogram, less than most pet cats.
Why does a fennec fox have such big ears?
The big ears do two jobs. They pick up the tiny sounds of prey moving under the sand, and they let heat leave the body, which helps a lot in a hot desert.
Does a fennec fox need to drink water?
It drinks when it finds water, but it can go a long time without any. Most of the moisture it needs comes from the animals, fruit and roots it eats.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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