EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Cross Fox in the Snow

Red Fox ("Cross Fox" color phase) (Vulpes vulpes) Family Canidae
North Slope, Alaska, USA

Explanation:  This red fox ... is not red.  

Red foxes can exhibit several color forms, but this one is particularly interesting.  This is the cross fox color form, which I photographed just south of Prudhoe Bay & Deadhorse, Alaska, on the North Slope, along the Dalton Highway.  
  

The name cross fox comes from the light coloration down the back and down the shoulders ... which forms a cross pattern when the pelt is spread out.  Cross fox pelts have been used mostly for scarves. 
    

Foxes can hear lemmings, voles, and shrews moving and tunneling
underneath the snow, and make some startling, head-first dives
to grab their prey.
  

 
This cross fox has dinner -- a brown lemming.  Yum.