What animals hibernate in winter? Who sleeps in winter Animals that hibernate in winter.

The apartment is always warm. Animals and birds do not experience cold and behave differently than in nature. The chipmunk, dormouse, gopher, and hedgehog do not fall into hibernation, remain active throughout winter season. Of course, this is reflected in the life expectancy of animals in captivity: they age quickly. It is better to give the hedgehog, gopher, and chipmunk a short period of time to hibernate. Place the box in a cool (no more than five degrees Celsius) place, insulate their nest, and they will fall asleep for a while.

Indeed, in nature, when a cold wind rolls low drifting snow with a piercing whistle, and dense snow turns into hard crust, animals and birds that do not sleep suffer greatly from hunger. It is difficult to find food on snow-covered ground. Some people have adapted to endure hunger in their sleep.

One day they uprooted an old hazel tree stump. They brought him from the mountains to the village. There was a lot of fiddling around before they sawed it in two, leaving a hollow inside. It was not empty. A gray dormouse with large black eyes and a fluffy tail was fast asleep, hiding from the December cold. She slept so soundly that she did not hear how the tree was uprooted and sawed.

What is hibernation? What animals hibernate and how do those who do not have this property hibernate?

Cold-blooded animals - toads, frogs, lizards - with the onset of cold weather they burrow into the silt, huddling deeper into holes, cracks, and empty niches underground. They become clogged and freeze for the entire winter.

Their hibernation is not surprising. More mysterious is the hibernation of warm-blooded animals - birds and animals. In the waking state, a decrease in body temperature in warm-blooded animals by several degrees causes death. In hibernation, their body cools down to 10-15 degrees, the heart beats only once or twice a minute, but the animals do not die.

Is it only cold that causes hibernation? Then how can we explain summer hibernation?

Desert. There is scorching heat all around, everything is burnt out. Only dry, red stems of saltwort and wormwood stick out on the slopes of the foothills. Sand dunes they breathe fire, the plains are cracked. How to live? This is where you have to escape through summer hibernation. Turtles burrow deeper into the ground. At a meter depth, the temperature has slight fluctuations. There they can live without food for up to eight months. Gophers also climb into holes. You won't find them from mid-summer until next March.

Fish also hide in the mud. Tench, crucian carp, loach and others hibernate and remain with barely noticeable signs of life until autumn days. Crocodiles in Africa and South America hibernate in summer.

It turns out that hibernation is a special reaction of the animal’s body to unfavorable living conditions.

Many mammals face winter fully armed. They diligently store food. From August until late autumn mice carry supplies to their shelters - baby, field, forest and house mice, squirrels and chipmunks. The animals hide selected grains, the best nuts, plant seeds, berries, and mushrooms in chambers underground, in dry hollows, and feast on these reserves in the cold.

The wolf, fox, corsac dog, and jackal do not store food. Unbeknownst to themselves, they put on a new “fur coat” for winter. This is what saves them from the cold during hunting and marching hours. And during rest, predators climb into holes and lairs - it’s warmer there.

Badgers, bears, raccoon dog, jerboas store fat for winter. By autumn they become voracious. It is fat deposits that are the main “food” for these animals during hibernation. In their free time from feeding, they deepen and clean their burrows, preparing the place for the long winter night.

But there are nomadic animals. With the onset of cold weather, they change their habitats. For example, most birds fly away from hungry and cold places. Some wander nearby, others fly to tropical countries, and return to their nesting places in the spring.

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With the help of hibernation, many animals adapt and adapt to winter. As soon as they see the first white fluffy snowflakes, the inhabitants of the fields and forests fall into hibernation, which can be described as a kind of economical mode.

At this time, the body is reconstructed and some changes occur in it: the heartbeat slows down greatly, metabolism decreases by 20-100 times, and body temperature is approximately comparable to the ambient temperature.

Hamsters prefer to spend the winter alone. They cover all entrances and exits in their burrow with earth. During the entire winter they wake up only a few times. Thrifty animals do this in order to make sure that all their food is in place, no one has taken it, and, of course, to refresh themselves. In hamster burrows there are many small chambers filled with various seeds and grains.

Marmots spend the winter as a family. More than ten adult individuals usually spend the winter in one burrow. Before hibernation, these animals take care of the comfort of the mink and insulate it with hay. Their burrows are cramped. Having prepared their home for the winter, they fall asleep and wake up only in the spring, when it gets warmer outside. Since in winter they do not wake up to eat, they do not stock up on food.

Hedgehogs also arrange their homes before winter; they usually insulate them with grass, leaves, and moss. Having completed the preparatory work, the hedgehog climbs into the hole, curls up into a ball and falls asleep. Hibernation in these animals lasts more than six months. During wintering, hedgehogs do not wake up, do not eat, or even move.

They prepare for winter in advance; in the fall they begin to eat large quantities of frogs, mice, lizards, beetles and all sorts of forest fruits and berries. Thanks to increased nutrition, the badger gains fat, weighing several kilograms. It serves as a source of life for the animal during prolonged winter hibernation. This animal can make a hole easily and simply; one day is enough for it. Then the badger drags leaves into its home, from which it makes a bed for itself, on which it spends the winter. Sometimes a badger does not spend the winter alone; it may have guests, for example, a raccoon. Badgers respond well to such a neighborhood, because it’s warmer together.

Before the onset of winter, they try to bring as much food as possible into the burrow, which is guarded and preserved until the onset of spring, since it is in the spring that these animals mating season. Their reserves can reach five kilograms of seeds, and they carefully select the seeds so that they are not spoiled. Chipmunks are very greedy animals. In winter they eat only in extreme cases, when they are already completely exhausted by hunger and cold. But in the spring, not a single animal has such food reserves as the chipmunk has.

Everyone has probably heard that in winter a bear sucks its paw. This is true, but he does this because the skin on his paws itches and the bear thus licks off the keratinized part skin. These animals are preparing for hibernation; they arrange their den, insulating it with branches, weeds, moss, and pine cones. The bear doesn’t forget about the bed, which he makes from the same materials. Before falling asleep, the bear walks around the area around the den, carefully examines it, and then, making sure that everything is in order and there is no danger, begins to move back to the den, thus covering its tracks. They don’t want anyone to disturb them during hibernation.

In the last few weeks before the onset of cold weather, bears begin to actively eat everything edible. They do this in order to gain as much as possible more fat First of all, they try to eat more high-calorie foods, which include fish and nuts. At this time, the amount of food consumed by these animals triples. Shortly before the onset of hibernation, they switch to a vegetarian diet, eating the stems and roots of plants; the amount of food consumed is very small during this period. As a result, the bear's stomach is gradually emptied and sealed. Now the bear can hibernate. But their sleep is not sound, but sensitive and alert, so that in case of danger or the appearance of an enemy they are on alert. The body temperature of these animals decreases, and the body is warmed by fat.

Mother bears practically do not sleep in winter, since during this period they give birth to cubs, and several cubs appear during the winter. The offspring grows very slowly. During this period, the female’s body is configured so that the cubs are fed and warm until spring. The bear hibernates without water or food, so at the end of the poor winter, the starved and exhausted animal greedily eats even the remains of lingonberries and cranberries.

Males have restless sleep; they listen warily to external sounds. These animals will not allow anyone to come close to their den. They may sometimes emerge from the den to make sure there is no danger nearby. If the animal finds the den too cold, damp, or simply uncomfortable there, the bear may change its home. However, finding a new den in winter, and even a free and comfortable one, is almost impossible.

Why do you think animals hibernate?

\r\nNot all creatures can continue to be active with the onset of cold weather. For others, the phenomenon of hibernation helps them avoid starvation. Some animals in hibernation even experience a period of pregnancy, the offspring are born after this process.\r\n\r\nDuring such a period, the animal’s body temperature decreases significantly (in individual cases, it rises or falls slightly, as in brown bear), and their body uses the resources accumulated during the warm period.\r\n\r\n \r\n

\r\nFirst of all, animals such as bears fall into winter sleep (at this time their body temperature varies around zero degrees Celsius, but the body produces such energy resources to return the animal to a full life), raccoons, badgers, hedgehogs, horseshoe bats (sleep, covered with their wings).\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nMost often representatives of mammals fall into such a “sleep”: rodents, marsupials, some lemurs (although for a long time it was believed that primates they do not hibernate in winter; as it turned out, the small dwarf lemur hibernates for 7 months out of twelve), marsupials.\r\n\r\nIt is a mistaken belief that birds can hibernate, with the exception of birds with the characteristic name dremlyuga. In the absence of parents, swift chicks also form this exception. For a long time also believed that giant shark conducts winter period time just like that. But it turned out that this creature was simply moving through the depths of the ocean in search of a more suitable place to feed. But fish such as ruffe, sturgeon, carp and perch prefer to go to the deepest points of the water. They awaken closer to the onset of heat, around April, when the water temperature reaches approximately ten degrees above zero.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nBats after hibernation have to, in the literal sense of the word, freeze to death. Their body temperature at this time can reach -5 degrees.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nFrogs burrow deep into the ground or under fallen leaves. The animal is interesting because its heart stops beating, and with the onset of warmth, it acquires its usual rhythm.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nHedgehogs are the most heat-loving representatives of the fauna; they emerge from hibernation later than everyone else, closer to mid-March. They tolerate the cold extremely painfully, so, without having time to “stock up” with a sufficient amount of fat and necessary substances, the hedgehog can die without waiting for its awakening.

Winter is a difficult period for many representatives of the animal kingdom on our planet. The starting point for them is autumn. Animals prepare for winter precisely with the onset of this time of year. Each zoological species prepares in its own way: some animals switch to “winter” fur, others manage to stock up on “food”, and still others, having gained enough fat over the summer, are forgotten in winter sleep. But what kind of animals meet the winter in full “combat readiness”? How do they do this? In this article, you will learn from several examples which animals prepare for winter and how they do it.

How do hamsters prepare for winter?

Winter time in the northern regions is perhaps the most stressful and important time in the life of small rodents. To avoid starvation and cold death, many small animals stock up on significant supplies of food. For example, living in the steppes Western Siberia and Europe, prepares for winter in the following way: during the fall, the rodent gains several kilograms (!) of selected grains and root crops. He does this diligently and docilely: the hamster spends his days transporting crops from the fields to his “bins,” dragging grains in his cheek pouches.

How do voles meet winter?

Many voles also greet winter interestingly. These cute mice begin to harvest grass in the spring, putting it in small piles under certain shelters (for example, under stones). In summer, voles bring rosehip flowers, leaves, cones and pine needles there. The active activity of these creatures ends in the fall, when the first snow covers the mountain meadows. Scientists have calculated the seasonal supply of these animals: one family of voles stores from 5 to 10 kg of food!

Real sleepyheads!

How else do animals prepare for winter? Some careless animals fully justify their name by going into hibernation for the winter. Mother Nature has decreed it in such a way that these sloths don’t even bother themselves with worries about Really, why? After all, you can just go into hibernation! Who are these little lazy creatures? Yes, it's Sony! Small rodents similar to squirrels. They live mainly in European forests, for which they are nicknamed forest dormouses.

Before the onset of cold weather, forest dormouse begin to noticeably gain weight. They get fatter until they weigh a couple of times more than usual and look like a small fur bag. These creatures sleep in spherical nests, made by them specifically for wintering. At least they are active in some way! Zoologists are touched by the sight of a sleeping forest dormouse: the rodent curls up into a very tight ball, pressing its nose and small paws to its abdomen. At the same time, the fluffy tail, in a semi-ring, covers almost the entire body of the animal.

Wild animals are preparing for winter. Brown bear

Not far from forest dormouse the clubfooted ones also left. In particular, the owner of the Russian taiga is the brown bear. Bears are those who do not arrange any storerooms for themselves, preferring to hibernate for the winter. Speaking in metaphorical terms, clubfooted heavyweights are their own “storerooms”, because all summer and all autumn they try to eat large reserves of subcutaneous fat in their bodies. Moreover, fat is an excellent “insulation” in winter time of the year!

Clubfoots begin to get fat when the berries ripen in the forest. While animals prepare for winter in one way or another, bears diligently feed on plant rhizomes, berries, nuts, etc. The brown bear's favorite delicacy is honey. For the sake of its sweet and alluring taste, the beast is ready to endure the stings of angry wild bees for hours. But the bear’s “menu,” of course, is not limited to plant foods. Do not forget that this animal is a real predator, therefore, along with berries and nuts, these animals feed on young deer, hares, foxes, wolves and fish. It doesn't cost a bear anything to kill an adult moose!

But gaining subcutaneous fat is only half the battle. Before the onset of prolonged cold weather, the clubfoot must have time to find a secluded place for its future den. Bears do this with enviable care. As soon as the place is found, the animal begins “construction”: it digs a hole in the ground, insulating it with branches, moss, pine needles and other available materials. If the search for a place for a den in a particular forest is unsuccessful, the bear may covet someone else’s shelter. Some of them even drive the current guest out of there and lie there themselves. This is how it is - a bear's preparation for winter!

Quiet in the forest: beavers, hedgehogs and badgers are sleeping

Speaking about how animals prepare for winter (pictures of some representatives of the fauna world are presented in the article), we cannot fail to mention badgers, beavers and, of course, hedgehogs. For example, beavers have been preparing a lot of twigs since the summer, carrying them underwater to their lodges. There they put “building materials” in piles.

Badgers decided to follow the example of clubfoot: they also store subcutaneous fat for winter. In addition, it is easier for them (than for bears) to build a shelter for the winter, and, it should be noted, they cope with their task quite skillfully. Zoologists say that some of these animals can prepare for winter in just one day! It is curious that sometimes a badger “invites” its neighbor, a raccoon, into its shelter. Both animals get along well in the hole, while winter evenings together.

Hedgehogs are insectivores that prefer to spend the winter hibernating. To do this, they look for secluded burrows located at a distance of 1.5 m from the surface of the earth. Hedgehogs, like bears, sleep all winter. Before going into winter sleep, these insectivores feed diligently, accumulating the same subcutaneous fat, which allows them to sleep through the entire season without unnecessary problems. If a hedgehog goes into hibernation skinny, then it simply has no chance of surviving the winter. Despite the name of their order (insectivores), these creatures eat not only insects, but also frogs, snails, lizards, mice, and bird eggs.

What other animals are preparing for winter?

The pictures presented in this article were not chosen at random: they depict the most striking representatives of the animal kingdom who are preparing for winter. This is done not only by large animals, but also by very tiny creatures - insects. Ants, for example, begin to build large anthills before the onset of severe cold weather. Bees use wax to close their entrance more tightly, leaving only tiny holes.

The question of how animals prepare for winter will not be fully answered if we do not mention our smaller feathered brothers. Many birds fly to warmer regions for the winter, returning to their “native land” only in the spring (storks, cranes, rooks). They are called migratory. But not all birds do this. There are also those who stay in their native lands for the winter. These are mainly urban birds (sparrows, pigeons, tits).

Hares, wolves and foxes

In the fall, some forest dwellers change their “summer” furs to “winter” ones, i.e., through molting, they shed the old light wool, acquiring new and warm ones. The color of the fur coats of some animals also changes, for example, hares. Their gray coat turns white, allowing them to remain virtually unnoticed against the background of snow. These animals do not make any winter reserves. They also do not hibernate. In winter, hares feed mainly on the bark of young trees.

Wolves and foxes, like hares, do not go into winter sleep, but actively scour the forest in the cold season in search of food, for example the same hares. These animals also shed, but the color of their coat does not change.

So, in this article, using some examples, we talked about how animals prepare for winter. As an example, we took the most prominent and famous representatives of the fauna world.

For all representatives of the animal world, the day is divided into phases of active wakefulness and rest. Man, by the way, is no exception either. However, some animals also go into seasonal hibernation. It's hard for us people to imagine what does it feel like to sleep soundly for months, but bears, many rodents and frogs take such things casually. Let's figure out why animals hibernate.

How does this happen?

Hibernation is not just a long sleep, but a certain state of the body that helps to survive the winter. During hibernation, an animal's metabolism slows down significantly. However, this also applies to all other processes. Body temperature sometimes drops even to sub-zero temperatures. Breathing may slow down to 1-2 breaths per minute. The heart can also only beat a few times per minute. All nutrients are thus consumed much more economically, so the animal can survive for several months only on internal resources.

Each cell of the body begins to use energy more economically.

In most species, the body is in a state of torpor during this period so that energy is not wasted on unnecessary muscle contractions. If you find a gopher hibernating, it may well be mistaken for dead.

And this is not the entire list

Animals in northern regions They hibernate in winter, and in dry areas in summer. Thus, it is clear that hibernation helps them survive the most difficult time per year.

Hibernation can also be daily. Hummingbirds and bats flow into it.

And some animals can hibernate when suddenly attacked. unfavorable conditions. For example, when a period of prolonged rains has begun, and it is problematic to obtain food, you can wait out some time in hibernation.

By the way, one of the primates hibernates. We are talking about the idea of ​​a dwarf lemur from Madagascar. He sleeps in his hollow for about seven months (!). Quite strange, because in those parts the temperature in winter is about 30 degrees Celsius. However The Colombian ground squirrel is considered the record holder for hibernation., who begins his marathon in the summer and wakes up only in the spring.

Why do animals need hibernation?

Everything is quite prosaic - a state of hibernation is needed to survive a hungry winter.

Of course, not all animals survive the winter in hibernation. They can be killed by extreme low temperature, exhaustion, or simply a predator who accidentally found their hiding place.

How do animals survive without food during hibernation?

Stocks! It is food prepared in advance that helps animals survive the winter. But they are fast asleep! In fact, after certain intervals, small animals still wake up to eat and drink water.

Supplies are very important for rodents

But bears do without all this. The fat layer accumulated during the preparation period not only provides them with nutrients during hibernation, but also helps maintain a certain body temperature. The bear does not urinate, so fluid loss is minimal. The water balance in his body is maintained by burning fat. Bears wake up much less often. Most often, they sleep soundly all winter.

Contrary to popular belief the bear sucks its paw not because of hunger, but in order to moisturize dry feet and nibble on dead skin.

We need to prepare!

Animals spend a lot of time preparing for hibernation, because they not only need to stock up on nutrients, but also arrange your home so that a certain microclimate is maintained there.

Rodent burrows can be up to 3 meters deep. Grains, nuts and seeds are stored there, which will help maintain vitality. Can overwinter in one shelter whole family rodents

Every hollow, den, and burrow must be safe and inaccessible to predators, and the temperature must remain above zero, even if there is severe frost outside. The temperature in the home will correspond to the body temperature of many hibernating animals. So it's not that simple.

The easiest thing is for the dalia fish, which does not need to take care of housing. She feels great in the frozen lake. The unique structure of the tissues protects this fish from freezing, and when the ice melts, it continues its life activity.

Bears are perhaps the most picky in terms of housing. These comrades can simply bury themselves in the leaves, and in winter they are covered with snow. So be careful, because one of the snowdrifts may turn out to be a sleeping bear, and they do not sleep so soundly. It will be especially bad for you if you come across a clubfoot closer to spring, because he will be very hungry. Probably because their sleep is not deep, bears are not particularly worried about a safe home. Everyone already knows how unsafe it is to wake them up in winter.

By the way, you should read ““. At the same time, you will find out how animals react to tickling.

Why do some animals fall into matches and others do not?

Each species has adapted to winter in its own way. Migratory birds(yes, they are not animals), without thinking twice they fly away to more comfortable places for wintering. The body of some animals is preparing for an active winter. An example of this is hares, which change their color to white for camouflage purposes and grow fur on the pads of their paws to make it easier to move on ice and snow. The squirrels simply fill their hole with enough supplies for the winter. Many insects, having laid eggs until spring, simply die.

In winter conditions, the same bear would spend a lot of energy searching for food, moving through snowdrifts, and simply resisting frost. The food found would not always replenish lost strength, and the survival of the bear would be in question. Move to other more warm regions he can’t, and to gather enough supplies for the winter the bear would need a huge den. Therefore, the most acceptable option for him, as for many other species, is hibernation. Their usual activity in winter conditions would be lethal.

Since we are talking about bears, some scientists say that their hibernation cannot be called complete. The processes in the clubfoot’s body do not slow down as much as in the same rodents. And his body temperature does not drop that much - only 5 degrees. There are ground squirrels whose temperature during hibernation can be about -2 degrees.

Based on the above, Bears' hibernation is called light. This also includes raccoons and badgers. But gophers, hedgehogs, jerboas and many others fall into true hibernation, when their body becomes completely numb.