Content
- what is hibernation
- How to prepare hibernating animals
- animals that hibernate
- Bear hibernates?
- Other natural cold adaptation techniques
For many years the arrival of winter has been a challenge for many species. Food shortages coupled with radical changes in temperature threatened the survival of animals in cold and temperate climates.
As nature always demonstrates its wisdom, these animals have developed an adaptive capacity to maintain their organism's balance and survive the harshest cold. We call hibernation this faculty that determines the conservation of several species. To better understand what is hibernation and what are the hibernating animals, we invite you to continue reading this article by PeritoAnimal.
what is hibernation
As we said, hibernation consists of a adaptive faculty developed by certain species during their evolution, to survive the cold and climatic changes that occur during the winter.
Animals that hibernate experience a controlled hypothermia periodTherefore, your body temperature remains stable and below normal. During the months of hibernation, your organism remains in a state of lethargy, radically decreasing your energy expenditure, your heart and respiratory rate.
The adaptation is so impressive that the animal often appears to be dead. Your skin feels cool to the touch, your digestion practically stops, your physiological needs are momentarily suspended, and it's difficult to perceive your breathing. With the arrival of spring, the animal awakens, regains its normal metabolic activity and prepares for the mating period.
How to prepare hibernating animals
Of course, hibernation brings with it the inability to seek out and consume the nutrients needed for survival. Therefore, the animals that hibernate must prepare properly to survive during this period.
A few weeks or days before hibernation begins, these species increase food intake daily. This behavior is critical to creating a reserve of fat and nutrients that allow the animal to survive during metabolic reduction.
In addition, hibernating animals tend to modify your coat or prepare the nests in which they take refuge with insulating materials to help maintain body temperature. With the arrival of winter, they take refuge and remain immobile in a position that allows them to save bodily energy.
animals that hibernate
THE hibernation it is more frequent in warm-blooded species, but it is also carried by some reptiles, such as crocodiles, some species of lizards and snakes. It has also been found that certain species such as roundworms that live underground in colder regions experience an important reduction in their body temperature and metabolic activities.
Among the animals that hibernate, the following stand out:
- Marmots;
- Ground squirrels;
- Voles;
- Hamsters;
- Hedgehogs;
- Bats.
Bear hibernates?
For a long time the belief that bears hibernated prevailed. Even today, it is common for these animals to be associated with hibernation in movies, books and other works of fiction. But after all, hibernate bear?
Many experts claim that bears do not experience authentic hibernation like the other animals mentioned. For these large and heavy mammals, this process would require enormous energy expenditure to stabilize their body temperature with the arrival of spring. The metabolic cost would be unsustainable for the animal, putting its survival at risk.
In reality, bears enter a state called winter sleep. The main difference is that their body temperature drops only a few degrees while they sleep for long periods of time in their caves. The processes are so similar that many scholars mention the winter sleep as a synonym forhibernation, but they are not exactly the same.
Regardless of the point of view of scholars who call the process hibernation or not, it has different characteristics when it comes to bears.[1], as they do not lose the ability to perceive their surroundings, like other species of animals that hibernate. It is also worth mentioning that not all bears need or can do this process.
The panda bear, for example, does not have this need since its diet, based on bamboo ingestion, does not allow it to have the necessary strength to enter this state of inactivity. There are also bears that can do the process but don't necessarily do it, like the Asian black bear, it all depends on how much food it has available during the year.
Let us know if you already knew about this difference between winter sleep and hibernation in the case of bears. And, if you want to know more about bears and winter, find out in Animal Expert how the polar bear survives in the cold, where we show you several theories and trivia, you can't miss it.
Other natural cold adaptation techniques
Hibernation is not the only adaptive behavior that animals develop to survive climatic variations and food shortages. Some insects, for example, experience a kind of lethargic season, known as diapause, which prepares them for adverse situations such as lack of food or water.
Many parasites have an inhibition of their growth, called hypobiosis, which is activated during the coldest or extreme dry seasons. Birds and whales develop migratory behaviors that allow them to find food and environments favorable to their survival throughout the year.
If the hibernation process made you curious about the adaptation of living beings to the environment in which they live, be sure to check out our other article on this topic.