The Arctic Fox in 99 Nights in the Forest (aka Snow Fox) — 80 HP, the Pack That Hunts Together, Its Drops and What the Pelt Builds

The Arctic Fox is the small white snow predator that a large part of the community calls the most annoying entity in the game. It is not the biome's apex — that is the Polar Bear — and it is not anywhere near the snow's biggest health pool. What it has instead is one detail that stat tables leave out, and it is the whole reason this animal punches above its numbers: it hunts as a group, and the moment you damage one, the others come.

That single rule is why "how do I kill an arctic fox" has a different answer from "how do I kill a wolf". A Wolf is 75 health and you can pull one away from the pack and settle it alone. The Arctic Fox is 80 health, 12 damage per bite, faster than a Wolf by every figure we can check, in packs of 2–5, and with an attack range so short that a patient melee player can strafe it to death. Neither animal is a threat alone. Only one of them makes a 2–5 body problem out of a single mistake.

The tame route — Good Taming Flute, three cycles, the undamaged-animal rule — is on How to Tame a Fox. This page is the other half: the numbers, the pack behaviour, how to actually kill one without losing the run to four of them, and what the pelts are for.

Last verified: 2026-10-03.

Quick Answer

Arctic Fox or Snow Fox? It Is One Animal With Two Names

If you searched for a "Snow Fox" and landed here, nothing is missing: it is the same creature.

The community wikis, the animal stat tables and the entity lists all use Arctic Fox. PC Gamer's taming table — the one that pairs each pet with its food and flute — writes the row as Snow Fox, with 3 Steak + 3 Chili, the Good Flute and the Snow biome. Nothing in that row breaks the match: the food, the flute tier and the biome are exactly what every other source gives the Arctic Fox. Our own Best Pet page already lists it as "Snow Fox / Arctic Fox", and we keep both names on this page so a search under either lands on the same answer.

What we cannot confirm is which name the game shows you on the animal itself. No source we accept publishes a screenshot of the in-game nameplate, so we are not going to pick a winner. Treat "Snow Fox" as the same animal under a second name, not as a separate pet you have not found yet.

Where It Spawns

The Snow Biome, in packs of 2–5, occasionally alone. That is the spawn every source agrees on, and unlike the Hellephant there is no landmark to walk to — one wiki puts it plainly: the Arctic Fox does not spawn in any specific locations. It is not a cave creature and it is not guarding anything. It is roaming snow, which is why you meet it on the way to something else.

Two details are worth planning around:

• It can leave the biome. One wiki's trivia section notes that Arctic Foxes sometimes appear in the Forest and drift out of the Snow Biome. So "snow only" is a bias, not a hard boundary — if you see one at the edge of the forest, that is normal, not a bug in your map.
• The campfire gate is disputed. One wiki lists the Snow Biome spawn requirement as Level 2+ campfire, another as Level 3+. We could not settle it, and we are not going to split the difference. Our own taming page reports Level 2+ because that is what the majority of guides state. In practice it means the same thing: foxes are a mid-game meeting, not something you see on night one.

The biome it lives in — the freeze meter, the Bell Tower trick, the Ice Temple gem route and why the snow is worth the trip at all — is on Snow Biome.

Why One Hit Brings the Whole Pack

This is the section, and everything else on the page is secondary.

The behaviour is documented identically by both wikis: the Arctic Fox wanders aimlessly until a player enters its detection radius, damages it, or another Arctic Fox is damaged by a player. Then it runs at you, and it stops only when every player has left its detection radius.

Read that second clause carefully, because it is where players lose runs. The aggro rule is not "the fox I hit". It is "the foxes" — including foxes you have never touched, standing well outside your fight. One wiki's trivia puts the player-facing version bluntly: kill or hit one Arctic Fox and all the nearby ones attack you; another describes the same thing as becoming "a large horde when attacking a group".

So the practical consequences are:

• A 2–5 pack is the real encounter. Twelve damage sounds like nothing. Six foxes on you at once is a different number entirely, and one wiki calls the foxes "capable of dealing high damage in a group" precisely for this reason — the group, not the bite, is the damage source, and no stat table shows it.
• The fox you hit is the one you wanted. Pulling a single fox out of the pack is not optional politeness; it is the fight. Our tame page makes the same point: pull one away from the group before you start the flute or you will be swarmed mid-tame.
• Leaving the detection radius actually works. The stop condition is written into the behaviour, not assumed: once you are out of it, they break off. That is the same shape as the Scorpion rule and is worth remembering in the snow, where your freeze meter is already running down while you kite.

How to Kill It

Every source converges on the same shape of advice, and it all follows from the two facts above.

1. Deal with them one at a time, from range. The wikis recommend clearing foxes individually with a ranged weapon specifically to prevent the pack from swarming. If you have to close the distance to reach it, you are accepting the group.
2. Strafe, do not stand still. The melee route exists because the fox's attack range is very short: it lunges at you and overshoots, so a player who keeps moving sideways takes far less than a player who trades with it. Both wikis state the strafing melee kill; the hit-and-run description is a content site we exclude, but the core movement advice matches.
3. Use the structures. Stock quirk that both wikis record: like the Wolves, Arctic Foxes can get stuck on small structures and even buildings. This is the snow version of the Hellephant tree trick, and it is the cleanest way to break a pack — let them path into something you can walk around, then take the side they cannot.
4. Do not chase one into deep snow. The advice is consistent: when you spot a fox, do not rush in, because there are probably more, and make sure you have open ground to run across. This matters more in the Snow Biome than anywhere else, because a fully drained freeze meter takes your run away from you — see Snow Biome for the meter and how the Bell Tower slows it.
5. Bring the right tool if you have it. The Ice Sword's frost effect is its own argument here: slow, do not just hit. Our Ice Sword page notes the Brawler pairing kills a Wolf or an Arctic Fox in two hits, so a Brawler with an Ice Sword removes a fox before the pack closes rather than while it is closing.

What It Drops

The Morsel range is the most corroborated number on the whole page — four sources give 1–2, including both wikis. The Pelt at 0–1 is the same agreement. One content site says 2–3 Morsel and a lookalike domain says 2–3; neither has aFollowing, we exclude both.

The Pelt has exactly one job, and it is not the Pelt Trader. An Arctic Fox Pelt builds warm clothing and nothing else:

Both come from the Warm Clothing Shop in the snow, and both slow the freeze meter — the Hat is one of the warmest pieces you can wear without a Mammoth Tusk recipe. The Pelt Trader does not take it, and it cannot be turned into biofuel; those two negatives are documented on our own fox tame page and repeat here because they are the questions players actually ask. The full warm-clothing recipe list, including the Polar Bear Hat and the Mammoth Helmet, is in our Pet Food table.

One open question, left open on purpose: the Knitting badge ("craft 10 warm clothing", rewarded with 5 Diamonds) is described by one wiki as reachable with Arctic Fox Pelts, and by the other wiki as something the fox pelts could once have fed — because the badge is now removed. Those are not the same claim. We show both rather than pick, and neither affects the Beanie or the Hat.

Arctic Fox vs Wolf vs Polar Bear

Two comparisons are worth stating outright.

Against the Wolf, the fox is not the softer target the numbers suggest. 80 health against 75 is a rounding error, and 12 damage against 20 looks like a gift — but the Wolf is an animal you can isolate. The Arctic Fox is split into packs of 2–5 and shares a single aggro rule across all of them, so the same mistake that costs you one Wolf costs you the group. The Wolf's damage is bigger per bite; the fox's is unavoidable in volume.

Against the Polar Bear, the contrast is what the fox is not. The Polar Bear is 500 health, 50 damage, drops 7–8 Morsel and 3–4 Steak and is the animal you prepare for. The Arctic Fox offers none of that and asks none of it — it is a roadblock on your way to the bear, not a destination. Its drops feed your hunger slightly and its pelt feeds your freeze meter.

Neither of these is The Owl, the snow's night boss, which is a separate encounter with its own rules.

Should You Tame It Instead?

For a lot of players, yes — and the honest case against hammering them is short.

The Arctic Fox is one of the cheapest tames in the game: Good Taming Flute, three cycles, 3 Steak + 3 Chili. It is also the only pet whose bill contains Chili, which scatters randomly around the map and is the complaint you will see on our Best Pet page. Every ingredient and cycle is step-by-step on How to Tame a Fox, including the rule that catches people: the fox must be undamaged when you start, so you cannot shoot your way into a pet.

What the tame costs you in combat is the pack problem in reverse — a tamed Arctic Fox is a distraction, not a bodyguard, and with a two-pet cap you are spending a slot on it. Our Best Pet page is the tie-breaker; this page is the reason you would want one.

FAQ

Is the "Snow Fox" a different animal from the Arctic Fox? No. Same animal. The Arctic Fox is the community-wiki name; PC Gamer's taming table lists the row as Snow Fox with the same flute, same three cycles and same Steak-and-Chili bill.

How much health does an Arctic Fox have? 80, by three sources. One content site we exclude says 90 and another says 135; neither is used here.

Why is a 12-damage animal so annoying? Because it does not fight you alone. Damaging one Arctic Fox — or getting inside its detection radius — brings the rest of the 2–5 pack. Two or three foxes at 12 each is worse than a single Wolf at 20.

Can I kill it with melee? Yes. Its attack range is very short and it overshoots when it lunges, so strafing sideways while you swing is the documented melee route. Ranged is still the safer default because of the pack rule.

What does it drop? Morsel 1–2 and a chance at 1 Arctic Fox Pelt. The pelt makes a Beanie or an Arctic Fox Hat and nothing else.

Where do I use Arctic Fox Pelts? At the Warm Clothing Shop in the Snow Biome. Beanie is 1 Pelt + 1 Bunny Foot; Arctic Fox Hat is 3 Pelts. The Pelt Trader does not want them and they cannot be turned into biofuel. All five pieces, with where each material comes from, are on Warm Clothing.

Which campfire level do foxes appear at? Sources split: one wiki says Level 2+, another Level 3+. We report 2+ on our tame page because it is the majority figure.

Can I tame one I have already shot? No. An animal must be undamaged to take the flute. The full rules are on How to Tame a Fox.

Is it faster than a Wolf? Its walk speed is 27, published by two wiki-style sources whose tables otherwise match. No source we trust publishes a Wolf speed figure, so the popular "faster than a wolf" line rests on sources we exclude — we give you the number rather than the ranking.

Do foxes stay in the Snow Biome? Usually, but one wiki records them appearing in the Forest and drifting out of the snow. Treat snow as its home range, not a cage.

Sources

Checked 2026-10-03. Corroborated by three or more sources: the core stat line — hostile, health 80, damage 12, Morsel 1–2, Arctic Fox Pelt 0–1, Snow Biome spawn — appears identically on the fandom wiki, the miraheze wiki, Sportskeeda's animal table and rblxguide, with the Morsel range agreed by four. The pack spawn of 2–5 (occasionally alone) is the fandom wiki, miraheze and roonby. The "damaging one fox brings the others" aggro rule is the fandom wiki and miraheze, both of which state it as part of the behaviour text rather than as a tip. The Warm Clothing recipes — Beanie 1 Pelt + 1 Bunny Foot, Arctic Fox Hat 3 Pelts — are the fandom wiki's Warm Clothing page and 99-nights-in-the-forest.com. The strafing melee kill and the foxes getting stuck on small structures and buildings are the fandom wiki and miraheze. Two sources, stated as such: walk speed 27 is miraheze and rblxguide, whose tables otherwise match line for line, so we cannot confirm these are independent records; the campfire Level 2+ versus 3+ split is fandom (3+) against miraheze (2+), and the "Knitting badge is removed" half of that claim is miraheze alone. The Brawler plus Ice Sword two-hit breakpoint against a Wolf or an Arctic Fox is our own claim on How to Get the Ice Sword, where the Brawler scaling is sourced separately. The PC Gamer taming table naming it Snow Fox is a single publication. What nobody publishes: the in-game nameplate, an official health or damage statement, the Wolf's walk speed, a hard respawn timer, and whether the Knitting badge is still obtainable. We exclude 99nightsinforest.com and roonby's 135-figure lookalike content sites from the counts above: the first's stat block disagrees with every other source (90 health, 18 damage, 2–3 Morsel), the second's entity table is an outlier throughout.

Related Pages

• Snow Biome — the biome it lives in, the freeze meter and the warm-clothing shop
• How to Tame a Fox — the Good Flute, three cycles and the undamaged rule
• The Polar Bear — the snow apex it shares a biome with, at 500 HP and 50 damage
• The Wolf — the animal whose 75 HP and 20 damage set the baseline it is measured against
• The Alpha Wolf — the stronger forest cousin, and the red-eyed version of the comparison
• The Owl — the snow's night boss, a completely separate encounter
• How to Get the Ice Sword — the frost slow that answers pack fights
• Best Pet — whether the fox earns one of your two pet slots