Editing Kit fox (section)

==Behavior==
[[File:Kit foxes at the Nevada Test Site.jpg|thumb|Kit foxes peer from a culvert at a construction site on the [[Nevada Test Site]]]]
Kit foxes are mostly [[nocturnality|nocturnal]]<ref name="nocturnal">{{cite web|url=http://digital-desert.com/wildlife/kit-fox.html |title=Kit Fox |publisher=Digital Desert |access-date=2014-07-16}}</ref> and sometimes crepuscular;<ref name="ADW"/> they escape heat stress during the day by resting in underground dens.<ref name="Sheldon1992"/> Kit foxes normally forage on their own. Kit foxes are not exceptionally territorial, preferring to live in pairs or small groups of relatives.<ref name="ADW"/>

Dens are used during the year for daytime resting, escaping predators, avoiding extreme heat, preserving moisture, and carrying and rearing young.<ref name="Egoscue1962"/> Kit Foxes will dig their own dens, but they can also modify and use the burrows of badgers, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, and kangaroo rats.<ref name="iucn status 19 November 2021" /> Dens are spread across the home range, and an individual fox usually uses more than 11 dens in a given year.<ref name="iucn status 19 November 2021" /> They normally rest in their dens during the day, but sometimes can emerge to bask and, when pups are young, to play.<ref name="Sheldon1992"/>

In comparison to many canids that pant only at the resonant frequency of the thorax, kit foxes pant at a rate proportional to the ambient temperature before the rate exceeds the resonant frequency. In doing so, kit foxes exercise the economics of water at the cost of energy.<ref name="McGrew1979"/> The apparent speed of kit foxes is essentially an illusion created by their limited size and [[cryptic coloration]], and their incredible ability to evade and change directions. An accurate account clocked a fox kit at around 40 km/h in front of the car, but the fox was easily exhausted.<ref name="McGrew1979"/>