What happens if animals dont hibernate

Me too. Well, maybe we should have been born as bears. Bears are the most notorious animals for taking season-long snoozes every winter, but a surprising number of animals also have some interesting winter slumber styles, too. Animals do this to survive the winter because the weather is cold and food is scarce. It is advantageous because these animals can quite literally shut themselves off for weeks at a time rather than try and survive through harsh weather conditions.

While many people think bears are hibernators, they actually participate in a similar, though not exact, practice. Instead of hibernating, bears fall into a deep sleep called torpor. During torpor, heart rate and breathing rate decreases, body temperature reduces slightly and bears do not eat or release bodily waste. Bears can sleep more than days without eating, drinking, or passing waste! The U. National Park Service suggests they are super hibernators. The obvious choice would be the edible dormice Glis glis Ruf works with—they can stay dormant for more than 11 months at a time in the wild.

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Go Further. An Indian summer and an early thaw could result in a very short hibernation. Some species keep a close eye on their food supplies. When they dwindle, the animal knows it's time to gather up whatever is left and turn in for the winter. Photoperiod the length of the day triggers hibernation for others. Even if an animal has no idea what the outside temperature is, how early the sun is setting or the current state of food supplies, many would still enter a hibernation state around the same time each year.

Experiments under these conditions have proven that some species will automatically enter hibernation at the appropriate time, guided by an internal biological "calendar" [source: Roots ]. These circannual rhythms aren't fully understood, but all animals are affected by them, even humans. Animals that go into daily torpor depend instead on circadian rhythms , the daily version. Preparation is required to hibernate successfully. Some animals prepare a den also known as a hibernacula and line it with insulating material, just as leaves or mud.

Ground squirrels and lemurs do this. Polar bears dig tunnels in the snow. Other bears might spend the winter in a hollow beside a tree or a shallow cave, leaving them partly exposed to the weather. Bats are well-known for wintering in caves or attics. Next comes food storage. Food can be kept in the den if it's nonperishable, but this requires the animal to wake up briefly during the winter to eat.

Another option is to eat a large amount of food starting in late summer, building up a reserve of internal fat. Some animals even do both.

If enough food can't be found to prepare for hibernation, it can be delayed. White-faced hornets build nests out of paper.

They make it by scraping wood and mixing it with saliva before forming it into rooms and chambers. The nest grows larger throughout the summer, eventually getting about as large as a basketball.

When winter arrives, there are many layers of paper making up the nest, and a layer of air in between the paper. This provides excellent insulation. The hibernating hornets vibrate their wings periodically, giving off body heat that keeps the nest just warm enough for the queen to survive and start another nest in the spring. Hibernation is mainly controlled by the endocrine system. Glands in the body alter the amounts of hormones being released and can control just about every physiological aspect of hibernation.

When a mammal enters hibernation, it becomes somewhat like a cold-blooded animal. Its body temperature will vary depending on the temperature around it. However, there is a minimum temperature, known as a set point. It's just like setting the temperature on your thermostat at home. When the mammal's body temperature reaches the set point, the metabolism kicks in and burns some fat reserves. This generates some energy, which is in turn used to heat things back up above the set point.

Larger animals have a higher set point. If they let their temperature drop too low, it would require an enormous amount of energy to heat back up again.

Body fat, which is packed with energy, is burned off to provide the energy necessary to maintain these minimal levels of body functions. This can be very efficient -- Arctic ground squirrels live entirely off of stored body fat for as long as nine months. Some species are unable to store enough body fat, so those animals have a lighter hibernation, allowing them to awaken periodically for a snack. If an animal is burning fat or snacking on stored nuts all winter, what happens to all the waste?

No fecal matter is produced because nothing is passing through the digestive tract and intestines. But the body is always producing urea , the waste product that is the main component of urine.

Hibernating animals' bodies are able to recycle the urea. Bears don't urinate all winter, but they break the urea down into amino acids. Even though they don't drink, they don't get dehydrated either. They're able to extract enough water from their own body fat to stay hydrated.

Hibernating animals have a special way to stay warm: brown fat. Ectothermic animals are those whose body temperature depends on the ambient temperature.

Endotherms , by contrast, can regulate their own body temperature by generating internal heat by combusting fuels. People are endotherms. However, this distinction can be a bit misleading, since some fish, reptiles and insects are actually fully or partially endothermic. On the other hand, ectotherms are more reliant on environmental conditions: a lizard, for example, can only warm up from a cold spell if heat from an external source, like the sun, is applied.

Endotherms, by contrast, can warm themselves up by producing heat metabolically and by shivering, for example. But for endotherms to be able to regulate their temperature, they need enough fuel to burn—in other words, they need enough food to counter the effects of cold.

This can be a challenge when freezing weather comes along or when food is scarce. During torpor, physiological processes, like breathing and heart rate, slow down. The body temperature is set at a new, lower point. Animals that are able to adjust their base body temperature and metabolism in this way are known as take a deep breath heterothermic endotherms. Tawny frogmouths are an example. The largest bird known to employ torpor, it goes into this energy-saving state at night or in the early morning, especially on cold winter days, between which it feeds and functions as usual.

In fact, many birds enter daily or nightly torpor, including kingfishers and owls, as do many small mammals. So how does this relate to hibernation? Well, hibernation is essentially a series of bouts of torpor that each last for many days.

Hibernation differs from daily torpor in that it usually involves much lower body temperatures and metabolic rates, and is often seasonal. In addition, while animals who go into daily torpor wake up and forage or feed in the usual way, hibernating animals either feed off their body fat or on specially stored food. Like many other hibernators, they pig out in the warmer months, gaining up to 13 kilos a week on carb-rich berries and other food.

They also prepare a special place to hibernate a hibernaculum, if you want to get technical —a den lined with leaves and twigs. When winter sets in, the bears hole up in their dens and go without eating, drinking, exercising, urinating or defecating for as long as days, waking up somewhat lighter but apparently none the worse for wear.

Hibernation aficionados, however, disagree about whether bears actually hibernate. Nevertheless, the metabolic rates of bears during this time are comparable to those of other hibernators; their heartrates slow to around just 4 beats per minute, and oxygen consumption drops by around 75 per cent , with the bears taking only one or two breaths per minute.

This suggests that the same physiological processes are at play in overwintering bears as in hibernating animals. Interactive Who hibernates? Test your knowledge or take a guess to discover which of these five animals hibernate. Found in the Americas, hummingbirds do not hibernate, but, like many birds, they go into a daily or in their case, nightly state of torpor.