The fennec fox's giant ears work as both radiators and underground microphones
The smallest member of the dog family weighs as little as a kilogram, yet no other canid has ears so large relative to its body. Those ears shed Saharan heat and pick up prey moving beneath the sand, while furred paw pads, water-hoarding kidneys and a nocturnal routine handle the rest of desert life.
Fennecs live across the Sahara, from Morocco and Mauritania east through Egypt to the Sinai, favouring dunes and open sand where rain can total under 100 mm a year in the north of their range. Their pale coat reflects sunlight by day and holds warmth at night, the inside of each ear is so thickly haired that the ear canal cannot be seen, and dense, large kidneys help store water. They get much of their moisture from food and drink only when water turns up.
Being active at night keeps them out of the worst heat and limits water lost to panting. In firm ground a family's den can sprawl across 120 square metres with up to 15 entrances, sometimes linking with neighbouring families' burrows, whereas loose sand gets a simple one-room hole. Alone, a fennec digs for insects and small vertebrates and also eats lizards, birds and eggs, fruit, roots and tubers; one Algerian study of 114 droppings found more than 400 insects along with date palm fruit.
Pairs mate for life. After breeding the male turns protective and brings food to the female through pregnancy and nursing, and litters of one to four arrive between March and June after roughly 50 to 52 days. Older pups stay with the family when younger siblings are born. Wild fennecs live about 10 years; the oldest known captive male reached 14.
Nomads say a fennec twists and turns so fast that even Saluki hounds rarely catch one. Algeria has made it the national animal, and its football team plays as Les Fennecs. A long-eared fox Martial described as a popular pet was probably a fennec kept in Rome, and one appears in Saint-Exupéry's 1943 novella The Little Prince. The species was rated least concern by the IUCN in 2015.
Source: Fennec fox
