Hibernation is how many animals spend the winter.

Hibernation is how many animals spend the winter. They spend months is suspended animation.

During the cold winter months it is quiet outdoors. Most of the summer birds have flown south to warmer climates. Frogs, turtles and bears have disappeared. Both warm and cold blooded animals retreat to burrows, dens and winter shelter. There are many animals which pass the cold months in a sort of suspended animation. This suspended animation is commonly called hibernation.

Hibernating animals spend relatively little time in the winter asleep, but a state scientists call “torpor”. Torpor is suspended animation.

Body Changes

During torpor, an animal lowers it's body temperature, metabolic rate and need for energy.

This suspended state also protects the animal from the cold and reduces the need for food.

The body temperature of hibernating animals drops to nearly that of the surrounding air.

The heart rate and breathing slows down greatly. The metabolism slows down. Metabolism is all the sum of all the chemical reactions in the cells of the body, that produce energy. This energy is used for growth and body maintenance.

During this suspended state, the animal's body doesn't need energy for growth. Growing stops during hibernation. But, the body does need energy for body maintenance to stay alive.

Since the metabolism has slowed down, little energy is needed for body functions. This energy is used to keep the heart pumping , the lungs breathing and other body functions working. Energy from stored body fat is enough to keep the these functions going. This is why animals such as groundhogs and bears eat so much and grow so fat before winter sets in. An animal enters hibernation in the autumn very fat. It emerges in spring much thinner. All that stored body fat is used to produce energy to stay alive.

How Do They Do it

Researchers still don't understand how natural hibernators put themselves into torpor or how they bring themselves out of it.

From experiments there maybe a biochemical basis that triggers this suspended state. Experiments have been done on the blood of hibernating animals. At at least one of the triggers is present in the blood.

How This Can Help Humans

Scientists have noted that when an animal's body approaches the freezing point. they bleed very little and feel little pain. This knowledge has been used during surgery. Surgeons chill the body by packing in ice to lower the body temperature. This reduces the need for replacement blood. The need for aesthetics is also reduced.

During hibernation (or torpor), an animal is in a suspended animation. Being able to hibernate would also help in space travel. Astronauts could be placed in a stated of suspended animation for long space voyages. Their would need little energy to stay alive. And during long months of space travel not need food or water. They could wake up toward the end of a long journey. Works Consulted

"Hibernation", by R. Baird Shuman. Magill's Encyclopedia of Science: Animal Life (2002), vol. 12, p. 761-764.

"Perchance to Hibernate", by Ben Harder in Science News, January 27,2007, vol. 171, p. 56-58.

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