Fox - finger puppet by Sterntaler

When a story at reading time moves into the woods, the fox is already sitting on a finger with its ears pricked. The Sterntaler finger puppet fox is made to turn up at just the right moment: orange-red plush and a pale face are all it takes to recognise it. A child can make it listen, creep and vanish again.

The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) picks up sounds that escape the human ear. It is most sensitive around 3.5 kilohertz, precisely where the gnawing and rustling of mice sits, and can locate such sounds even beneath a thick layer of snow. Its eyes have vertical slit pupils, unusual for a member of the dog family. Behind the retina lies a reflective layer that sends incoming light through the light-sensitive cells a second time, improving night vision. Its den usually has several exits, so an escape route stays open whenever danger threatens.

Did you know that foxes appear to use the Earth's magnetic field when hunting in snow? Czech researchers observed that red foxes pouncing on prey they could only hear mostly jumped in a north-easterly direction. Jumps in that direction succeeded far more often than jumps towards the north-west or south-east.