In the most frigid extremes of the Arctic, there lives a unique and hauntingly beautiful creature. It is found throughout the Arctic tundra and is the only native land mammal of Iceland – millions of years ago it walked on small, well-padded paws from Northern Europe across a sea of ice to claim the then-uninhabited island as its own. Meet the Arctic fox: a canine expeditioner, Iceland’s true first discoverer.

The Arctic fox skipped Denmark, but resides in the rest of Scandinavia, Russia, the North Pole, Canada, and Alaska. Though it inhabits places where humans rarely venture, a hardy traveler can be lucky enough to see these small canines quietly darting about the glaciers, or even coming close enough to inspect human visitors with their curious brown eyes, their pristine white coats gleaming in the sunlight.

The Arctic fox’s shape differs from that of its leaner cousin, the red fox; it is more rotund, and its white coat is much denser. These evolutionary adaptations are designed to protect the Arctic fox from the freezing temperatures of its habitat. Though the snowy coat is the Arctic fox’s most famous hallmark, it is not always white. In summer, gray markings appear along the back, and Arctic foxes that live on a coast can present as blue – these color variations aid camouflage against ice, gray rocks, and coastal cliffs.

The Arctic fox can withstand seventy below before it even begins to shiver. To survive temperatures as harsh as one hundred centigrades below freezing, it curls into a tight ball with its head and limbs shielded under its bushy tail, and hides in its den, an elaborate network of underground tunnels dug over the years by multiple generations of foxes. When the weather is warmer, the Arctic fox prepares for the cold by packing on the pounds, eating voraciously to expand its layer of insulating fat. Despite these evolutionary measures, the Arctic fox does not live long, and survives only three or four years on average.

Though life is harsh for the Arctic fox, it is well-suited to its glacial environment, and like most polar creatures, the greatest threat comes not from the cold temperatures, but from those which are gradually warming. Climate change has decimated much of the Arctic fox’s natural environment, stranding it on narrowing strips of icy land and rendering it increasingly exposed to predators. With the melting of white ice, the white coat no longer serves as camouflage, but as a beacon for the polar bears, wolves, golden eagles, and other large carnivores that dine upon these small round creatures. The most surprising of the Arctic fox’s predators is its cousin, the red fox, who tracks down and kills its polar relative.

Population numbers have been decreasing, and the decline is exacerbated by a correlated drop in the numbers of lemming, the Arctic fox’s primary prey. Unsurprisingly, the white or blue pelt is a prized fur, and an additional threat to the survival of the species comes from hunting, which led to extinction on the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen. Arctic foxes are now a rare sight in Russia and Scandinavia, where they are estimated to number a mere two hundred.

Save the Arctic fox! Efforts to save the species are underway in Sweden, where the Arctic fox is the symbol and focus of scientific research at The Vindelfjällen Nature Reserve, the largest protected area in Europe. The Swedish Arctic Fox project keeps tabs on numbers, checking dens, observing litters and counting cubs.