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Hibernation is a mechanism used by many mammals to reduce energy expenditure and survive food shortages over the winter. Hibernation may be predictive or consequential. An animal prepares for hibernation by building up a thick layer of body fat during late summer and autumn that will provide it with energy during the dormant period.
An ectotherm (from the Greek ἐκτός (ektós) "outside" and θερμός (thermós) "heat"), more commonly referred to as a "cold-blooded animal", [1] is an animal in which internal physiological sources of heat, such as blood, are of relatively small or of quite negligible importance in controlling body temperature. [2]
In many small species, food caching replaces eating and becoming fat. [4] Some species of mammals hibernate while gestating young, which are born either while the mother hibernates or shortly afterwards. [5] For example, female black bears go into hibernation during the winter months in order to give birth to their offspring. [6]
Overwintering is the process by which some organisms pass through or wait out the winter season, or pass through that period of the year when "winter" conditions (cold or sub-zero temperatures, ice, snow, limited food supplies) make normal activity or even survival difficult or near impossible. In some cases "winter" is characterized not ...
They do not store food for the winter, but sometimes eat the insides of their push-ups. While they may appear to steal food beavers have stored, more seemingly cooperative partnerships with beavers exist, as featured in the BBC David Attenborough wildlife documentary The Life of Mammals . [ 29 ]
Most mammals also have hair to help keep them warm. Like birds, mammals can forage or hunt in weather and climates too cold for ectothermic ("cold-blooded") reptiles and insects. Endothermy requires plenty of food energy, so mammals eat more food per unit of body weight than most reptiles. [139]
These rodents use torpor as means to survive winter and live to reproduce in the next reproduction cycle when food sources are plentiful, separating periods of torpor from the reproduction period. The eastern long-eared bat uses torpor during winter and is able to arouse and forage during warm periods. [ 25 ]
They usually do so when the temperature is warmer and will re-emerge in the late summer or early fall. [5] Mosquitoes also are reported to undergo aestivation. [6] False honey ants are well known for being winter active and aestivate in temperate climates. Bogong moths will aestivate over the summer to avoid the heat and lack of food sources. [7]