Fennec Fox

The **Fennec Fox** appeared in 2015 videogame called *Kemono Friends*. Fennec Fox is a Friend that first appeared in the 2015 Nexon Mobile Game.

Fennec has large blonde and pink ears, trimmed with white tufts of fur. Her hair is light blonde with lighter portions that resemble the real life facial pattern, with black tendrils on either side of her head to resemble whiskers. Her eyes are dark brown. She wears a pink sweater with a white pleated skirt. She wears a yellow and white gradient scarf, tied into a bow. She has long yellow and white gradient gloves with white fur cuffs. She wears matching yellow and white gradient thigh-high socks with fur cuffed penny loafers.

The fennec fox is a small nocturnal fox found in the Sahara of North Africa. Its most distinctive feature is its large ears, which helps it dissipate heat. The name comes from the Arabic word فنك (pronounced fanak), which means fox. The fennec is the smallest species of canid, its coat, ears and kidney functions have evolved to adapt to high-temperature, low-water, desert environments. In addition, it has hearing sensitive enough to hear prey moving underground.

The fennec is found in North Africa and Asia. The range is from Morocco through to Egypt, as far south as northern Niger and as far east as Kuwait. The typical den is dug in sand, either in open areas or places sheltered by plants with stable sand dunes considered to be their ideal habitat. In compacted soils, dens can be up to 120 square meters, with up to 15 different entrances. In some cases different families of fennecs interconnect their dens, or locate them close together. In soft, looser sand, dens tend to be simpler with only one entrance leading to a single chamber. Weighing around only one kilogram, the fennec is the smallest of all foxes. It is easily recognized by its massive ears which are about 10 centimeters in length, its large, black eyes and small muzzle. The fur of the fennec fox is long, soft and sandy colored providing excellent camouflage in the desert. The face is lighter with a dark streak that extends from the inner eye down and outward to either side of the muzzle. Their thick bushy tail is a little more reddish, with a black tip and a black patch near the base. The slender legs of the fennec fox in North Africa are reddish sand, whereas foxes from further south have almost white legs. The soles of their feet are covered by long, soft hairs that protect the feet from extreme temperatures and help them maintain balance on loose sand. Their large ears act like radiators and dissipate heat as well as provide excellent hearing to detect prey. They can subsist without water for an indefinite period, and survives by obtaining moisture through their prey and conserving water by remaining in burrows during the hot days and venturing out only at night. They subsist mostly on grasshoppers and locusts, but eat other insects, rodents, birds, lizards and even roots. Their woolly fur helps insulate them during the cold nights. They will tremble when temperatures drop below 20 degrees Celsius, but incredibly, they only start to pant when temperatures exceed 35 degrees Celsius. When they do pant their breathing rate rockets from 23 breaths per minute up to an astonishing 690 breaths per minute.

Fennec foxes are monogamous, and a pair lives with their offspring in a family unit of up to 10 individuals. They usually mate in January and February and females give birth in March and April. Usually a litter of two to five cubs are born every year, after a gestation period of around 50 days. The male provides food and defends the burrow until the cubs are four weeks old. They are weaned at 61 to 70 days and reach adult size after only 9 to 11 months. In captivity, they have been known to live for almost 13 years however there is not enough observation to know what the average lifespan is in the wild. Like other canids, fennecs will bark, whimper and whine to communicate with others. They also mark their territory using scent marks around the perimeter. The fennec fox is listed as Least Concern of the IUCN Red List. Threats to fennecs include dogs and humans. In northern Africa, the fennec is hunted and trapped, sold commercially or killed for their meat and fur. These threats have resulted in a decline in numbers in certain populations. While studies of captive animals have gone some way towards improving our knowledge of this little-known species, much remains unknown of their basic ecology and behavior in the wild. Work on captive populations is encouraged, but an in-depth study of the species, with particular emphasis on habitat use and population dynamics in the wild is overdue. Field studies in Tunisia are starting to redress this situation but undoubtedly more work is needed.