The famous dive into the snow is even stranger than it looks.
The Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) lives in more places than almost any other wild hunter on Earth. Foxes live in forests, on farms, in deserts, on mountains, and in the middle of big cities. If you live in North America, Europe, or most of Asia, there is probably a fox living within a few miles of you right now.
A fox hunts mice in a way you have to see to believe. In winter, it walks slowly across a snowy field with its ears pointed down. It is listening. A fox can hear a mouse moving under three feet of snow. When it finds one, it crouches, jumps high into the air, and dives nose first into the snow. Scientists call this hunting jump mousing.
Here is the strange part. One team of scientists watched hundreds of these jumps. They found that foxes catch the mouse far more often when they jump facing north. Their best guess is that foxes can sense the Earth's magnetic field, the same invisible pull that moves a compass needle, and use it to line up the dive. No one has fully proven it yet. It is one of the open mysteries in animal science.
The big fluffy tail is not just for looks. A fox uses it to keep its balance when it runs and turns. On cold nights, it curls up and wraps the tail around its nose like a scarf.
Foxes are quiet neighbors. They hunt mostly at night and keep to themselves. If you want to spot one, look along the edge of a field at sunrise or sunset, and check the snow in winter for a line of neat single-file tracks. A dog wanders. A fox walks in a straight line, like it knows exactly where it is going.