What is the difference between hibernation, hibernation and cold rigidity in animals?
Biting cold, masses of snow and long winter nights: Feathered animals migrate south, other four-legged friends get cold feet , turn their backs on the world and retreat to their burrow for weeks. Entrenched and well fed, they simply sleep through the uncomfortable season. But hibernation is not the same as hibernation. Mammals in the wild , like birds, belong to what are known as warm-blooded (homeothermic) animals and hibernate or hibernate to survive the cold season. Pets – apart from turtles – do not belong to the hibernators. They stay active and get a thick winter coat as protection against frost.
hibernation
Which animals hibernate? These include, for example:
- marmot
- dormouse
- Haselmaus
- Hamster
- Hedgehog
- shrew
- bat
Animals that go into hibernation drop their body temperature drastically, sometimes down to zero degrees, bats even below. The lowered metabolism is kept stable during hibernation by oxidation of fat.
Like the metabolism, the blood sugar level and blood pressure are also lowered, breathing, heartbeat and blood circulation are slowed down. Depending on the animal species, urine formation is almost or completely stopped. Only small animals weighing up to eight kilograms can snooze with impunity in winter.
hibernation
Larger animals, such as badgers, raccoons and brown bears, but also squirrels, hibernate because a sharp drop in body temperature would be life-threatening for them: they reduce their activity to a minimum in the cold season to save energy.
Hibernators only lower their body temperature by a few degrees in winter , wake up frequently and eat.
freezing
The so-called cold rigidity only occurs in cold-blooded animals such as:
- fishing
- amphibians
- reptiles
- insects
Cold- blooded animals do not keep their body temperature constant, but change it with the ambient temperature. If a frog, lizard or bumblebee is too cold, they go into a state of rigidity called cold rigidity. In contrast to hibernators who are equally warm, cold-rigid animals cannot be awakened by external stimuli.
What are summer dormouse?
Incidentally, in addition to hibernators, hibernators and those who are cold, there are also summer dormitors, mainly in the tropics and subtropics, for example the mouse opossum, the yellow ground squirrel and the cactus mouse.