Editing Arctic fox (section)

===Diet===
[[File:Fox with fish.jpg|thumb|An Arctic fox (summer morph) with [[salmon]]]]
Arctic foxes generally eat any small animal they can find, including [[lemming]]s, [[vole]]s, other rodents, [[hare]]s, [[bird]]s, [[Egg (food)|eggs]], fish, and [[carrion]]. They scavenge on carcasses left by larger predators such as wolves and [[polar bear]]s, and in times of scarcity also eat their [[feces]]. In areas where they are present, lemmings are their most common prey,<ref name="NOAA" /> and a family of foxes can eat dozens of lemmings each day. In some locations in northern Canada, a high seasonal abundance of migrating birds that breed in the area may provide an important food source. On the coast of Iceland and other islands, their diet consists predominantly of birds. During April and May, the Arctic fox also preys on [[ringed seal]] pups when the young animals are confined to a snow den and are relatively helpless. They also consume berries and seaweed, so they may be considered [[omnivore]]s.<ref name="Bockstoce2009">{{cite book|author=Bockstoce, J.R.|title=Furs and frontiers in the far north: the contest among native and foreign nations for the Bering Strait fur trade |year=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HY6LvFMSxxwC&pg=PA41|publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-14921-0 |page=41}}</ref> This fox is a significant bird-egg predator, consuming eggs of all except the largest tundra bird species.<ref name="truett">{{cite book|editor1=Truett, J.C. |editor2=Johnson, S.R. |title=The natural history of an Arctic oil field: development and the biota |year=2000 |publisher=Academic Press |place=San Diego, San Francisco |isbn=978-0-12-701235-3 |chapter=Arctic Fox |pages=159–178 |author=Burgess, R. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ELsq-yAP0XkC&pg=PA161}}</ref>

Arctic foxes survive harsh winters and food scarcity by either hoarding food or storing body fat subcutaneously and viscerally. At the beginning of winter, one Arctic fox has approximately 14740 kJ of energy storage from fat alone. Using the lowest BMR value measured in Arctic foxes, an average sized fox of {{cvt|3.5|kg}} would need 471 kJ/day during the winter to survive. In Canada, Arctic foxes acquire from [[snow goose]] eggs at a rate of 2.7–7.3 eggs/h and store 80–97% of them. Scats provide evidence that they eat the eggs during the winter after caching. Isotope analysis shows that eggs can still be eaten after a year, and the metabolizable energy of a stored goose egg only decreases by 11% after 60 days; a fresh egg has about 816 kJ. Eggs stored in the summer are accessed the following spring prior to reproduction.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Careau|first1=V. |s2cid=51683546 |author2=Giroux, J.F. |author3=Gauthier, G. |author4=Berteaux, D. |name-list-style=amp |title=Surviving on cached foods — the energetics of egg-caching by Arctic foxes |journal=Canadian Journal of Zoology |date=2008 |volume=86|issue=10|pages=1217–1223 |doi=10.1139/Z08-102|bibcode=2008CaJZ...86.1217C }}</ref>