The quick fox turns out to be really true as researchers tracked a female fox walk more than 3,500 kilometres.
Using satellite tracking, researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Norway began monitoring the young female on March 26, 2018.
The fox travelled through continents and high arctic ecosystems.
It left Spitsbergen in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago on 26 March 2018.
After 21 days and 1,512 km out on the sea ice, it landed in Greenland on 16 April 2018.
“We first did not believe it was true,” said researcher Eva Fuglei, who tracked the female fox.
On July 1, 2018, she arrived on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada.
The total cumulative distance travelled during the entire tracking period was 4,415 km. This is among the longest dispersal events ever recorded for an Arctic fox.
Crossing extensive stretches of sea ice and glaciers, the female moved at an average rate of 46.3 km/day.
This is what it looks like on Google Maps.
The maximum movement rate was 155 km/day and occurred on the ice sheet in northern Greenland. This is the fastest movement rate recorded for this species, according to the research published in Polar Research.
Fjellreven vandret via havisen fra #Svalbard i Europa til #Canada i Nord-Amerika i et tempo ingen forskere tidligere har dokumentert. Foto: Elise Stømseng Les mer: https://t.co/Gk3xirq3YE pic.twitter.com/adzOVNFfyx
— Norsk Polarinstitutt (@NorskPolar) June 26, 2019
Photo: Elise Stømseng