Buried Treasure

A red fox makes a leap of faith while hunting for voles in Yellowstone National Park's Lamar Valley. Using immense patience, intense concentration and keen hearing, the fox can locate rodents under up to three feet of snow.  This sequence of five images, layered on top of one another, illustrates the pounce, the hang time and the landing of the mission.  Recent studies have indicated that foxes may use the earth's magnetic field to help pinpoint their prey.  In the study, foxes jumping to the northeast (roughly 20 degrees off "magnetic north") were successful 73% of the time, if they jump in the opposite direction to the southwest they were on target 60% of the time, but if they leapt in any other direction they only found a meal 18% of the time.  True to form, this fox jumped towards the west and came up hungry.