Short Stuff: Arctic Fox

The Arctic Fox is one of the cutest critters on the planet. It also has an amazing ability to survive the coldest temps on Earth. Dive into the snow and listen today!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, I'm welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck. We're just a couple of Foxes, Silver Foxes
with our pal Jerry silver is fox of all. My
hair's got a little great to it now. Yeah, your
beard super gray. Now it's been gray for a while,
but now I'm now that the gray is creeping into

(00:24):
the old upstairs. I've been plucking mine, no, sure what,
you don't care, do you? Mine sometimes comes in a
little wiry, and I'm like, I don't really like that
look on my super straight hair, so I do pull
them out when they come in like that. Sure Head
Pubes kind of a little bit more looked like a

(00:46):
roadie for Tesla. Oh you mean Jimmy Head Pube Barrington, Yeah,
the guitar tech. That's right. He was a great one,
but his hair was messed up. I'll hit him with
some smoke. That's right, man, That guy old inside joke
from our Detroit show. Some of you know what, some
of you don't. But we're here to talk about the

(01:06):
Arctic fox, one of the cuter little critters on planet Earth. Right,
So the Arctic fox is adorable, um, and it's uh
of of in the same families dogs, which makes it
automatically lovable. But the fact that they can survive in
some of the most inhospitable environments on the planet, it

(01:29):
makes them admirable. So there a adorable bowl. Okay, yeah,
I got it. Nice Portmanteau, thank you. Yeah. So the
Arctic fox Just go ahead, if you're in a place
where you're not driving and look up a little picture
of these little fellas or you're not crossing the street

(01:50):
right now. That's right. But they are I keep saying
little because they are small. Uh like foxes are small.
The Arctic foxes even smaller. They can be as small
as a little chihuahua and by the way, big thanks
to our old pals. At how stuff works with this one.
Or they can get huge, like the size of a
jack russell right there. They can get up to eight pounds.

(02:15):
That's right. So um when I said though, that they
can survive in some really inhospitable environments like the areas
where they live, the circumpolar areas Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland,
Northern Europe, Russia. UM, basically in the in the Arctic,
um they like they have to put up with temperatures

(02:38):
that drop into like negative fifty degrees celsius, which is
negative fifty eight degrees fahrenheit, which reminded me chuck of
I can't remember what episode it was, but remember Seemo
Hia the White Death. Yeah, And we talked about how
he he was, um he was, you know, basically sniping
Russian soldiers when it was like negative forty degrees fair

(03:01):
fahrenheight and fifty people rode in and said, negative forty
is the same in fahrenheight and celsius. I will never
forget that, And I just wanted to say it again
that I still remember after all these years. So remember that.
Uh So, what's astounding about the Arctic fox is that
it can survive in those kind of temperatures, and they
can do so for a lot of reasons. There are
a lot of really pretty spectacular evolutionary adaptations that allow

(03:25):
this to happen, and one of those is just that
little size. The fact that they're small, they're compact. They
have little legs, a little short muzzles, and they have
little small ears, so they don't have a lot of
surface area to begin with exposed exposed to that cold, right, right.
So that's that's one big thing. They also have the
warmest coat of any Arctic animal. It has multiple layers

(03:47):
and probably any animal wouldn't you think I would guess? So, yeah,
I now that you mention it. Um, they like they
can trap a layer of air which is heated by
their body heat, which in turn keeps them warm. So
it like protects them from the outside cold or air.
It's pretty amazing. And then um, the couded gras, the
death blow about their pelt is the fluffy tail on

(04:08):
the and that they actually used to cover their head
and face with when they curl up to sleep. Adorable.
That is awfully adorable. It's true. They also have hair.
They're the only canad that has hair over their footpads.
So not only does that just add even more insulation,
but it helds some walk on the snow. And then
they have countercurrent blood circulation. Uh, And this is what's

(04:31):
gonna happen. They're gonna reduce the blood flow to their
feet to make sure those little paws don't get frost bitten.
And then when it gets really really cold, their actual
metabolism um shifts by about slower than it is during
the summer to you know, to basically warm them up
to keep them from having to eat as much when

(04:51):
there's not as much food, So their body undergoes a
metabolic change to survive those winters. Yeah, kind of like
a walking quasi hibernation, and so that they use up
less fat stores that they build up in the fall.
Totally pretty cool. And one thing I didn't realize about
the Arctic fox, in addition to just about everything we've
just said, um that they come in two colors. There's

(05:14):
a blue variety of an Arctic fox, which is awesome.
Did you see those? I think it's like that white
that's so white it looks blue. Well, it's sort of
a gray to um. It certainly doesn't look blue blue.
So if you get excited to go see a blue
animal or a blue mammal, don't get your hopes up
too much. But it's you know, I have a problem.

(05:36):
I'm not color blind or anything. But Emily always sees
colors more uh and more deeply, I guess than I do.
So she might see one and call it blue, but
I didn't think. I mean, I see one in the
Google image results, and it's pretty blue. I see the
gray you're talking about as well, but it's you know,
people do all sorts of cookie things with uh, you know,
post production with photographs now, so who knows what they

(05:58):
did with that? See me that blue fox? Will you sure?
In a box? Sure, I'm gonna go get them, And
you could go get them. Some people do keep them
as pets from time to time, but those are people
who live up in Arctic areas. You wouldn't want to
get one and bring them down to Georgia because they
would be extremely uncomfortable and that would be cruel. But also, chuck,
they apparently make really terrible pets as well, right, Yeah.

(06:22):
I think they're known as super super stinky. I think
they have a urine that's it's sort of like skunk like,
so they're smelly. They're very very hard to train, although
they say you can train them, but they it's just
it's probably not a great idea if you're for a pet.
I mean, if you're living up in the Arctic, you
don't have a lot of choices, Go ahead and get
an Arctic fox and see what you can do. But

(06:42):
don't don't live in Miami Beach and think you're gonna
be cool and have some exotic pet, because it's illegal.
A and just unethical. B Right, there you go. It
covers both boxes. Should we take a break, I think
we should. We'll come back with more about the Arctic fox.

(07:21):
So what do these little boogers eat? Um? So apparently
so since they're canaids, they should be carnivores um, even
hyper carnivores I've seen, but they're they're technically omnivores because
food supplies can get so scarce that Arctic foxes have
been known to eat basically whatever will sustain them, including
seaweed and berries, but typically they prefer meat. Sure, they

(07:44):
will load up, increasing their weight by up to as
that hard, hard winter sets in store up that body fat.
And if you see a polar bear in the Arctic hunting,
you will probably find at least one or more Arctic
foxes trailing u not too far behind, because they will
follow those polar bears around and get whatever little scraps

(08:05):
that polar bear can't get to. That's right. One of
the great things about Arctic foxes is they can hunt
year round because of their little ears. Their ears are
super wide. They're short, but they're wide, and they can
actually hear stuff like some of their prey moving under
the snow and so uh if you've ever seen a
video of an Arctic fox pounce, it's adorable. But they

(08:27):
will go, it's so great, and then straight down to
like kind of break through the snow and land on
top of their prey and catch their prey. And um,
I will one up you. The Arctic fox pouncing is adorable.
Momo does that to lizards, and really it makes an
Arctic fox look like garbage. It's so cute, man, you

(08:48):
see the videos. In the snow, this Arctic fox will
literally leap up in the air and then half of
it will disappear beneath the snow, and all you will
see sticking up is a butt and rear legs and
that big old fluffy tail and then they'll you know,
there might be a mouse, you know, two feet down
into that snow that they smelled from many many feet away. Uh.
So I highly recommend. I doubt if Josh is going

(09:10):
to post pictures or videos of Momo of doing this
on YouTube, but you can find plenty of Arctic foxes
doing it. I'll try to find I'll try to get
a video of it actually if you can. Yeah, it's
not adorable for the mice, but it is to everybody else. Yeah,
but you know it's part of the food chain. It
is true. So um, if you are a male Arctic fox,

(09:32):
they call you a dog, sure, sometimes with the a
W instead of an ode, depending on how good a
friends you are with the person calling you that. If
you're a female, what do you call chuck? Your vixen?
That's awesome, which I love. And just like other foxes,
I think other foxes are kits little babies if I'm
not mistaken, and you know, they've made about once a year,

(09:55):
they have about twenty they're born dark usually at first
about twenty little dark kits, and they are adorable. They
give birth in the blazing summer months of like a
sort of spring to summer April through June, and usually
wean about forty five days and sometimes their siblings will
help raise them, which is also pretty cute. Yeah. And

(10:18):
then by the time they hit nine to ten months
of age, actually within six months, they're off on their own.
And then in nine to ten months they're sexually mature, um,
and they have a really compressed initial you know, adolescents
and um initial maturation period because they don't live that long. Actually,
I think in like, if you have an Arctic fox

(10:41):
as a pet, they've been known to live ten to
twelve years, kind of similar to a dog, although small
dogs often live longer than that by several years. But
I guess the longest anyone's ever documented an Arctic fox
living is sixteen years. Yeah, and in the grand scheme
of thing, I think in the wild, you're probably looking

(11:02):
at more like eight years. Yeah. I mean it's a
lot harder life in the wild, I would guess than
hanging out in some some dudes leaned to in northern Canada.
You know, every since we're talking about the Arctic, every
time I think about the Arctic, now I think about
the show of The Terror. Have you seen that show
The Terror? Don't think it was an AMC show. It's

(11:26):
available on Hulu. There were two seasons. It's an anthology series,
so each season is its own, entirely different story. The
second season I recommend like the first half of the
first season, from start to finish, the first second to
the last second. It is worth every bit of your
your U interest. Oh wait a minute, this is the

(11:47):
one you recommended to the grabster on email, right, Yes,
it's so good Man just check it out. It's such
It's one of the best made television shows I've ever seen.
I can't imagine how much it costs to make. And
you can tell. And all of the actors are like
just the like every one of them is like the
best actor working today. Um. But you know, and you've

(12:09):
seen them, you recognize them here there, but you don't
really know their names like that kind of stuff. It's
just a really great, great show. Uh. Well, The Atlantic
says The Terror is more than a chilling monster show. Yeah. Well,
the reason they call it the Terror is one of
the one of the ships, the Terror of the Faded
Lost polar Um Expedition. That's that's what it's about, is that.

(12:31):
And it just kind of it's all um, speculative fiction basically. Uh.
And since we're on TV corner here for the last minute, Uh,
we just finished the first season of Leftovers last night.
Season one wrapped up, and so we're speeding right into
season two. Loving the show. It started to drag a
little bit, but then the last two episodes of season
one got really interesting. Uh. And I wanted to also

(12:54):
further explain I think I might have turned some people
off with Station A Levin saying, it is a post
pandemic flu pandemic world. Uh, it is. It is one
of the best shows I've ever seen. And it's not
it's not terrifying. It's like there are no infected or
no zombies or anything out there waiting to kill you.

(13:14):
Like all the infected died, So it's it's really just
about repopulating and the story of these people who survived.
And it's very uplifting, good good stuff I see. So
it's soft core. Yeah, it's soft core. It's a Cinemax show.
That's the boy. How did we get here? God bless
the Arctic fox is what we're saying, Thanks Arctic Foxes.

(13:35):
We love you guys. Uh. And of course everybody that
means that short stuff is apt. Stuff you should know
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