North American pocket mouse<\/a>, an example of a facultative hibernator, will also rely completely on stored fat.<\/p>\nWhile hibernating, are animals just in a deep sleep or is something else happening?<\/h3>\n
Though it seems like a deep sleep, hibernation is much more. It’s a specialized state of reduced metabolic activity.<\/p>\n
During hibernation, an animal\u2019s heart rate, body temperature, and breathing rate all drop to minimal levels, allowing them to conserve energy in a way that is different from regular sleep.<\/p>\n
In the midst of hibernation, can animals wake up, or do they sleep straight through?<\/h3>\n
While it seems that they’re in a continuous sleep, animals can wake up briefly during hibernation.<\/p>\n
But, they do not wake fully to eat or drink; these are more like momentary check-ins before they dive back into torpor.<\/p>\n
What signals to animals that it’s time to start hibernating?<\/h3>\n
The onset of colder temperatures and changes in daylight patterns signal it’s time to hibernate.<\/p>\n
These environmental cues trigger hormonal changes in hibernating animals, cueing them that it’s time to tuck in for winter.<\/p>\n
By answering these queries, they hope to have painted a clearer picture of the winter wonderland that happens under the snow, where the smallest creatures slow down to a near stop, all to emerge with the spring thaw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imagine cozying up in your warmest blankets as a chilly winter wind howls outside. Now, consider some animals who take winter napping to the next level through hibernation. Hibernation is a fascinating survival strategy that certain mammals use to conserve energy when food is scarce and the temperatures drop. They enter a state that might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"views":2,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2873,"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions\/2873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animalresearcher.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}