White-tailed ptarmigan The species name "leucura" was for a long time misspelt "leucurus", in the erroneous belief that the ending of "Lagopus" denotes masculine gender. However, as the Ancient Greek term "λαγωπους" is of feminine gender, and the species name has to agree with that, the feminine "leucura" is correct. The species name "leucura" is derived from the Latinized version of the Greek "leukos", meaning "white" and "oura", meaning "tail", in reference to the bird's permanently white tail. The white-tailed ptarmigan is the smallest of the ptarmigans and the smallest bird in the grouse family. It is a stocky bird with rounded
Arctic hare new fur, from brown or grey in the summer to white in the winter, like some other Arctic animals including ermine and ptarmigan, enabling it to remain camouflaged as their environments change. However, the Arctic hares in the far north of Canada, where summer is very short, remain white all year round. The Arctic hare is one of the largest living lagomorphs. On average, this species measures from long, not counting a tail length of . The body mass of this species is typically between , though large individuals can weigh up to . The Arctic hare is a herbivore,