Talk:Hibernation

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Hibernation is a type of sleep a animal (ANIMAL OR HUMAN) takes for a very long time

. In any case, this subject is no longer confined to new original research. There are numerous scientific articles on the subject, and it's also been showing up in public consumption news for a few years now. 131.212.202.74 (talk) 17:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Even is a new article is found, it doesn't change the definition or add examples of hibernation, it just shows that medical doctors have figured out a way to induce it at will. At best it should be linked in additioal reading.--Paddling bear (talk) 17:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

glyoxylate cycle

"Hibernating animals get their energy by burning fat, and are able to convert fatty acid carbons to glucose via gluconeogenesis"

I have several issues with this sentence. The citation for this claim is a poorly designed study (n = 1!) that: 1. has not been independently replicated; 2. the results of which have been refuted in the literature (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0305-0491(99)00109-1); and 3. is based on a model of hibernation in black bears, which is hardly representative of all hibernators. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.97.120.178 (talk) 20:07, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

unsigned questions

Can somebody add some information about muscle atrophy and animal defication during hibernation?

Do hibernating animals defecate?

Some defecate, some don't. As for muscular disuse atrophy, that would be a good section. I'm not sure if it's been shown to be avoided in all hibernators or just some. Maybe I'll look it up and write this section later. 131.212.202.74 (talk) 17:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Can anyone write expand on the neuroscience of hibernation? How it affects memories and the hippocampus. And also the discovery that hibernating brains accumulate hyperphosphorylated tau (discovered by Thomas Arendt, University of Leipzig, Germany, 2003).

The work relating to memory is fascinating. It's remarable that they remember anything at all, with the retraction of dendrites. A section on general neuroprotective mechanisms would be good. 131.212.202.74 (talk) 17:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

hibernate (software)

please see the discussion at talk:hibernate (software) regarding disambiguation of hibernate. Plugwash 16:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Several of the species listed here as hibernators are ancient species; snakes, newts, bats, frogs etc. Questions as to the paleontological history of hibernation are important to ask. The issue could use discussion here.

The geographic distribution of hibernators and extinct hibernators would be important additions to this article.

Hibernation can also occur with satellites. Several current NASA missions can be kept in a low activity orbit or movement for a long period of time in order to conserve fuel.

James T. Struck

Another question

Do hibernating animals dream, or have REM sleep or whatnot? The article mentions "inhibiting neuronal activity", does that imply that they don't dream like they might if they were normally sleeping? --Interiot

Truly hibernating animals arouse now and then to get some sleep. See last paragraph & ref, Sleep (non-human). Has also been discussed elsewhere. --Hordaland (talk) 16:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

During torpor - the state of hibernation where metabolism and temperatures are reduced - deep hibernators don't have any neurological activity at all. They do not dream. I'm not sure if this is true for hibernators that maintain higher temperatures and metabolic levels, like bears. 131.212.202.74 (talk) 17:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Frozen Ground Squirrels?

"In contrast, hibernating ground squirrels may have core body temperatures as low as -2° C." This line in the article seems to have a typo "core body temperatures as low as -2° C." would not that be frozen solid, as water freezes at 0° C. Which would seem to make the creature dead and not hibernating. If they really have been found with core tempratures as below 0° C then a source would be in order.

Published in the Journal Science in 1989 see http://users.iab.uaf.edu/~brian_barnes/publications/1989barnes.pdf pcr^talk 17:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Pure water freezes at O° C, but body fluids are not pure water, and so would have a lower freezing point. Some Arctic fish additionally have gylcols in the blood which act as an anti-freeze in the sea water, which can, of course, be colder than O° C because of its salt content. Jimfbleak 10:11, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

bears

they hibbernate —Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.5.6.112 (talk) 23:56, 15 January 2008 (UTC) yo

A lot of older works avoided an old arguement with mammalogists who studied rodents who didn't want bears called hibernators because of the differences in dormancy between these groups. However, I read this web page on the MN bear lily that had a web camera: http://www.bear.org/website/bear-pages/black-bear/black-bear-facts/hibernation/190-do-black-bears-hibernate.html I haven't read all of the citations, but think the pendulum is switching to hibernation including more responses. I hope to get time to help rewrite this section from the citations sometime. We should broaden links to other types of dormancy like torpor, estivation, etc. with examples of what differences they have.--Paddling bear (talk) 17:35, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Polar bears are aggressive and inquisitive, and, as such, potentially dangerous to humans. Unlike most other bears, wild polar bears are poorly habituated to humans and will quickly assess any animal they encounter as potential prey. Males are normally solitary except for mating season, although females are usually social towards one another. The polar bear is often regarded as a marine mammal because it spends many months of the year at sea. Polar bears live along the shore and on sea ice in the icy cold arctic. When ice forms over the ocean in cold weather, many polar bears, except pregnant females head out into the ice to hunt seals. Polar bears have been spotted on Ice Sea hundreds of miles from shore. When the warm weather causes the sea ice to melt, polar bears move towards the shore. Polar bears are a potentially endangered species. Polar bears are well-adapted to severe cold. Winter temperatures in the far north often plunge to -40° F or -50° F and can stay that way for days or even weeks. In January and February, the average temperature in the high Arctic is -29° F. The Arctic stays black and fiercely cold for months on end. In the High Arctic, the sun sets in October and does not rise again until late February. When curled up in a ball, polar bears sometimes cover their muzzles — which radiate heat — with one of their thickly furred paws. On bitterly cold days with fierce winds, polar bears dig out a shelter in a snow bank and curl up in a tight ball to wait out the storm. Polar bears know how to pack on the fat: A single bear can consume 100 pounds of blubber at one sitting. The polar bear's compact ears and small tail also help prevent heat loss. Polar bears have two layers of fur for further protection from the cold. Polar bears have more problems with overheating than they do with cold. Even in very cold weather, they quickly overheat when they try to run. Polar bears live only in the northern Arctic where they spend most of their time on ice floes. They are the largest land meat-eater in the world and the largest of the bear family. They are well suited to the cold Arctic ice and snow. Height: Average adult male 8.5 ft. (2.6 m) Average adult female 6.5 ft. (2 m) Weight: Average adult male 900 lbs. Average adult female 500 lbs. Colour: Off-white fur with black nose, eyes and mouth. Polar bears have fur that is made up of "hollow guard hairs." Sometimes when polar bears live in zoos that are in a warmer climate, they can have algae growing inside the hollow guard hairs of their fur. This makes them have a greenish tint to their fur. These hollow hairs also keep their hair from matting down when they swim in water. Pregnant females den up for winter but do not hibernate. All polar bears may den temporarily to avoid bad weather. They dog-paddle with their head and much of their back above water. Their blubber helps to float them as they swim. They can swim at an average of 6 miles per hour. Polar bears find a seal air hole and sneak up on it slowly and sit there until a seal comes up to breathe and then they scoop him right out of the hole. Polar bears hunt seals, fish, seabirds and reindeer. They will also eat vegetation and berries in the summer. Polar bears do not need to drink water, as they get all the liquid they need from the food they eat. In order for polar bears to stay fat and warm they must eat a lot of food. Polar bears often eat 45 kilograms of seal blubber in one meal. About half of the food polar bears eat is used to keep them warm, which is the same for humans. So the colder the Arctic gets, the more they must eat to keep warm. Polar bears have an amazing sense of smell, which means that they can smell a dead meal 20 miles away and a live seal one metre under the ice. They use their large feet as paddles when swimming and when on the ice, their feet are used as snow-shoes. Polar bear cubs are no bigger than a rat when born. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.190.88.239 (talk) 06:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

what does this giant cut and paste have to do with the question of hibernation?--Paddling bear (talk) 17:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Visiting stars?!?

["NASA is also interested in possibly putting astronauts in hibernation when going on very long space journeys, making it possible one day to visit far away stars."]
From what limited knowledge I have of stars, I think visiting a star would be near impossible. Maybe change the text to say planets or galaxies? Reminds me of a joke about some scientists that plan on making a trip to the sun, and after being laughed at they explained they were going to go at night so as not to burn up their space craft. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BillyNair (talk • contribs) 18:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you has mixed up galaxy and planetary system which is quite common.

2008-10-01 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

• Longing for the stars (or even nearby potentially habitable planets) takes a LOT of preparation. In regards to hibernation (human or other other earth-bound species that humans depend on) demands a lot of science that is not yet forthcoming. There is a lack of science on hibernation of human or dependent species (as well as zero-gravity hibernation) that would justify any current long-term space mission. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C48:7006:200:D84D:5A80:173:901D (talk) 01:30, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

”Hibernating” humans

Yoga is known to lower metabolism. Can 'Pranayama' (a specific Yoga exercise - http://www.yogamag.net/archives/1979/ldec79/slow.shtml) be categorised as lowering metabolism and therefore taking humans nearer to hibernation? Maybe thats what NASA is looking for? Can I add this to the main page next week? Anybody who doesnt like that idea let me know and we can debate it. wildT (talk) 17:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Umm, that link alone is hardly acceptable as a reliable source. It provides much speculation ("Research will also have to be. carried out into the possibility of yogic practices to stimulate regeneration through their ability to act on the nervous and hormone-producing systems.") and not much (nothing?) proven. I doubt that that sort of thing is what Wikipedia is for. --Hordaland (talk) 17:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Even if Yoga really does lower metabolism, it sure doesn't cause hibernation. These are different things. The level of temperature decrease seen in hibernation would typically kill a human. 131.212.202.74 (talk) 17:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Pointless anecdote

Erika Nordby, a toddler of 13 months in Edmonton, Alberta, wandered outside her family home on February 23, 2001. The outside temperature was -24°C (-11°F). When she was found, her heart had stopped beating for two hours and her internal body temperature had fallen to 16°C (61°F). Other sources say there was a slow pulse of 30 beats per minute but no blood circulation when paramedics arrived. In either event she was clinically dead. She suffered severe frostbite, yet required no amputation and made a full recovery.

The fact that this story has three citations is irrelevant to its accuracy. There is no such thing as "clinically dead" as differentiated from actually dead. It is the understanding of current medical science that a person is not dead unless their metabolically torpid status cannot be reversed.

I recommend this anecdote be removed from the article, since not only does it contribute nothing, but it is also an urban legend in terms of what it means, even if it actually happened as described, which is still questionable despite the citations. --70.131.125.158 (talk) 07:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

How can there be no circulation if the heart is still beating?

2009-03-10 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.247.167.70 (talk) 13:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

There could be no circulation with a beating heart if the valves were locked open. I don't think that happened though. 131.212.202.74 (talk) 17:07, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

hibernation

I think that hibernation is very important.hibernation consist of inactivity during the winter. animals sleep through the whole winter and wake up once a week to eat food they have saved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.251.107.138 (talk) 23:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Some of them eat food this way. Some don't. 5 October 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.212.202.74 (talk) 01:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Questions of text

How can a mammal gestate young while hibernating if the young were born shortly after the mother stops hibernating? I wanted to delte, but thought I'd ask. I know mother bears are still hibernating (still not eating, drinking, etc. but they are still aware enough to care for their young (Lilly's video shows that nicely)

• Before entering hibernation most species eat a large amount of food and store energy in fat deposits in order to survive the winter. Some species of mammals hibernate while gestating young, which are born shortly after the mother stops hibernating.

Also, what does "For a couple of generations during the 20th century" mean, why can't we just say 'it was thought'...--Paddling bear (talk) 09:31, 17 September 2010 (UTC) we are he hibernating animals we can eat lots of food and wake up after winter

Explanation, please?

From the article:

"There is a hypothesis that hibernators build a need for sleep during hibernation more slowly than normally, and must occasionally warm up in order to eat."

Is the second part of the above sentence dependent on the first? And if so, can someone explain and reword this? I have no idea how a slower build in the need for sleep is connected to having to warm up in order to eat. Lexicon (talk) 22:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Organization needed

This article is in serious need of some organization. When I edited it just now, it had sections titled "Hibernating Animals" and "Hibernating Birds," as if birds are not animals. I pulled out references to birds and retitled that section "Hibernating Mammals," but there are still references to reptiles and/or amphibians in that section. There are also multiple places where the distinction between hibernation, torpor, and deep sleep are discussed, and those should probably be pulled out to a separate section as well.

--zandperl (talk) 22:39, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed... It is currently confusing, having only categories for mammals and birds. The whole article is suprisingly weak, given its importance to zoology. Lord Spring Onion (talk) 19:26, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

A month in the life of a hibernating mammal

This article doesn't give me much of a feel of what it'd be like to hibernate. I understand animals wake up sometimes, but what do they do? Do they eat? Do they dream? Why bother waking up if you're not going to do anything? Do they need to "wake up" so that they can sleep (as opposed to hibernate)? Do they move around at all? Can they be disturbed by predators or do they just get eaten? More info for the lay-person please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.144.243.178 (talk) 21:35, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

"Why bother waking up if you're not going to do anything?" I often ask myself that same question on winter sundays. :) The article still needs some work, because species differ, but smaller animals like rodents have to periodically wake to eat, drink, and defecate. Bears are in a type of hibernation which allows them to get water from metabolising fat, so they don't become active to eat, drink or defecate although mothers are roused to care for their newborns. Bears shift positions etc. We now have a video of Lilly, from MN, so we have more direct information about wild bears (rather than one in captivity) than before.--Paddling bear (talk) 17:14, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Does this type of behavior count as hibernation?

Some insects can go for years without activity. I don't have any examples to show you, but an anecdote about these caterpillars that come every 7 years or so and wreak havoc on certain trees. This summer (2011) we in Minnesota experienced an invasion of Oak Tree leaf eating army worms that came and went.

Do these types of bugs that "hibernate" in the ground for years, and maybe even decades (I recall hearing something about a type of flying insect that has a 30 year pattern of appearing/retreating) count as hibernation? Is there another term, like Torpor, that specifically includes the species that show these extreme patterns? Quandrax Haxx | (talk) (Twitter) 10:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Definition of Hibernation?

Surely the article should start with an actual definition of hibernation, instead of apparently just assuming everyone who reads it already knows what it means? --60.245.65.129 (talk) 06:50, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Etymology

What is the origin and history of the term? Its resemblance to the Latin name for Ireland evokes curiosity.CountMacula (talk) 23:33, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

The English word hibernate derives from the Latin verb hibernare which means "to winter" or "to pass the winter"; this verb itself derives from the Latin adjective hibernus, meaning "wintry"; and this adjective derives from the Latin noun hiems (meaning "winter") + -rnus, a suffix frequently attached to Latin nouns to make them adjectives. If you want to go even further back, hiems is said to derive from the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European roots *ǵʰim-, *ǵʰyem-, making it cognate with the Ancient Greek χεῖμα (kheîma), the Sanskrit हिम (himá), and so on.

Hibernia (the Latin name for Ireland), on the other hand, comes from the name which Ptolemy used for the island in his book Geography: Ἰουερνία (Iouernía); this name derives from the name which Pytheas, a Greek explorer who visited the British Isles in the 4th century BC, used for the island: Ἰέρνη (Iérnē); Pytheas's name for Ireland apparently comes from the hypothetical Primitive Irish *Īweriū, whence Old Irish Ériu and Irish Éire come.

As to whether there is any connection between hibernate and Hibernia, that is less clear. As detailed above, there is no direct link, but Pytheas's account of his travels apparently emphasized that the British Isles were very cold; therefore, some speculate that the Roman alteration of Iouernía --> Hibernia may have been influenced by hibernus ("wintry") and related words. But, at best, this would only have been the Romans coming up with a folk etymology of a word that (to them) was "meaningless". —Salmar ^(talk) 13:23, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Move part of the Human Hibernation section under the Primates heading

The Human Hibernation section is logically divided into two distinct concepts, one dealing with documented instances of natural human hibernation, and one dealing with speculative concepts of artificially inducing hibernation for various purposes such as waiting for diseases to be cured, or surviving long space flights. I would move the natural hibernation anecdotes under the Primates heading, and keep the artificial hibernation content where it is, but change the title to Artificial Hibernation, or something conveying the same idea. Trilobright (talk) 15:03, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Human hibernation

A new project re human hibernation for long-term spaceflight is outlined here. "SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. (SEI) is pleased to release its recent findings evaluating the potential of its torpor-technology to enable sending an unprecedented number of passengers on a mission to Mars." More could be found, probably in other (more reliable sources), but chasing this info down may be helpful to development of the encyclopedia article. Cheers. N2e (talk) 19:32, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

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Bad sentence

"The hibernation of this lemur is strongly dependent on the thermal behaviour of its tree hole: if the hole is poorly insulated, the lemur's body temperature fluctuates widely, passively following the ambient temperature; if well insulated, the body temperature stays fairly constant and the animal undergoes regular spells of arousal."

This sentence (and the rest of its section) never say which of the two cases mentioned leads to hibernation.2600:1700:E1C0:F340:6178:3268:392B:A506 (talk) 17:08, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Misplaced information

Shouldn’t the Primates section be in aestivation?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:43, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, it sort of looks like that given the inadequate explanation, but it seems that a few primates like the Fat-tailed dwarf lemur do go into torpor, and that this is called "hibernation" by some scientists (including Dausmann et al and Faherty, refs already in article) even though the stimulus is drought rather than cold, so "aestivation" might be the more appropriate label. Perhaps the section needs quite a bit of rework and better sources, preferably a reliable review article.

Perhaps the real problem is that the definition of hibernation has changed in recent academic usage from one congruent with the word's etymology (wintering) to a more general one (torpor), while dictionaries, encyclopedias and the public have yet to catch up. The article ought to discuss the (history of the) concept of hibernation in a section near the top of the article (rather than having some scrappy cited discussion in the lead section, like a stub article) so the rest of the article can proceed on a secure footing. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:17, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Brown Fat: Brown adipose tissue is especially abundant in hibernating mammals?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_adipose_tissue

"Brown adipose tissue is especially abundant in newborns and in hibernating mammals".

--ee1518 (talk) 14:34, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Too much technical jargon, too many unexplained points, and too many irrelevancies in the opening section

The first paragraph runs:

Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in endotherms. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most commonly occurs during winter months.

"Endotherms"? "Heterothermy"? A definition that contains terms more unfamiliar than the term to be defined is not useful—the definition should use common English and enclose the technical terms between parentheses. And even though the term metabolism is familiar, just what metabolism is isn't common knowledge—people know that metabolism can be high or low, and that it's got something to do with digestion, weight, and energy, but "metabolic depression" and "low metabolic rate" are simply opaque. The only thing that laypeople know about the topic is that bears hibernate in the winter, so to say that it is a "seasonal heterothermy" is mystifying and to say that "it most commonly occurs during winter months" implies that it sometimes occurs in other months, but that contradicts the name and common knowledge. A revision might run:

Hibernation is a state of inactivity during winter months when in certain warm-blooded animals (or endotherms) the heart-rate and the rate of breathing slow, the body temperature drops, and the bodily processes by which energy is consumed and built up—metabolism—are also slowed.

The next paragraph is the first of two about the topic of what animals hibernate. It runs:

Although traditionally reserved for "deep" hibernators such as rodents, the term has been redefined to include animals such as bears and is now applied based on active metabolic suppression rather than any absolute decline in body temperature. Many experts believe that the processes of daily torpor and hibernation form a continuum and utilize similar mechanisms. The equivalent during the summer months is aestivation.

"Traditionally reserved"? Scientists don't have vague "traditions" that govern the application of a term, as for instance traditionally the term "America" applies only to the United States; instead, the referent of a scientific term is determined by theoretical criteria that admit of alteration. "'Deep' hibernators"? This term is not explained and, worse, because it is the bear that for laypeople counts as the animal that hibernates, it comes as a shock to hear that there was a time when scientists did not consider bears to hibernate at all. All in all, it is pointless to define hibernation using the modern criteria, and then to tell us that these were not always the criteria—that is not a statement about hibernation, but about the history of scientific understanding of the phenomenon, and it belongs in a history section. The statement about what experts believe is irrelevant—we want to know about hibernation, not about everything related to it—that info should be in a later section. The statement about aestivation is ill phrased, but should be retained while the rest of the paragraph should be cut.

Two paragraphs later, the other runs:

True hibernation is restricted to endotherms; ectotherms, by definition, cannot hibernate because they cannot actively down-regulate their body temperature or their metabolic rate. Still, many ectothermic animals undergo periods of dormancy which are sometimes confused with hibernation. Some reptile species are said to brumate, but possible similarities between brumation and hibernation are not firmly established. Many insects, such as the wasp Polistes exclamans, exhibit periods of dormancy which have often been referred to as hibernation, despite their ectothermy. Botanists can use the term "seed hibernation" to refer to a form of seed dormancy.

"Endotherms," "ectotherms," "down-regulate," "brumate," "polistes exclamans"—the author or authors of this paragraph really want to establish their scientific chops, don't they? Again, an encyclopedia article or passage thereof not written in ordinary English is useless.

"True hibernation"? If what other living beings do is not hibernation, then there is no point in mentioning them. Hibernation may be a type of dormancy, but if that is so, then there should be a simple statement of that fact. On the other hand, if what ectotherms do is confused with hibernation, meaning that what they do is not hibernation, and if some reptiles are just "said" to brumate, but the similarities have not been "firmly established," and if again insects are ectotherms, and their periods of dormancy aren't really hibernation but are "referred to" as hibernation, as botanists "refer to" seed dormancy as "seed hibernation," then with each statement one has given a reason not to mention any of these things because they have nothing to do with hibernation. The entire paragraph should be cut.

The third paragraph runs:

(1) Hibernation functions to conserve energy when sufficient food is unavailable. (2) To achieve this energy saving, an endothermic animal decreases its metabolic rate and thereby its body temperature. (3) Hibernation may last days, weeks, or months - depending on the species, ambient temperature, time of year, and the individual's body-condition. (4) Before entering hibernation, animals need to store enough energy to last through the duration of their dormant period, possibly as long as an entire winter. (5) Larger species become hyperphagic, eating a large amount of food and storing the energy in fat deposits. (6) In many small species, food caching replaces eating and becoming fat.

There are four themes in this paragraph: what hibernation does (1); what animals do to make hibernation function as it does (2); how long hibernation lasts (3); and what animals do before they hibernate (4-6). But surely it is wrong to represent an animal as decreasing its metabolic rate—that's just what happens when the animal falls asleep, or whatever the process is by which it enters into the specific inactivity of hibernation. More importantly, the lowered temperature and the slowed metabolism aren't different from the conservation of energy, but simply the way in which energy is conserved. Since this is information about the central phenomenon itself, it should be included in the opening paragraph, which would then run so:

Hibernation is a state of inactivity during winter months when in certain warm-blooded animals (or endotherms) the heart-rate and the rate of breathing slow, the body temperature drops, and the bodily processes by which energy is consumed and built up—metabolism—are also slowed. The lower breathing, heartbeat, temperature, and slowed metabolism function to conserve energy when sufficient food to maintain the normal metabolic rhythms is not available. Hence before entering into the metabolically depressed state, large animals eat more food than usual and store it as fat (hyperphagy), whereas many small species, instead of eating to deposit fat, store food in caches. Either way, the fat deposits and the caches must contain enough food to last for the entirety of the dormant period. Depending on the species, the individual's bodily condition, and the ambient temperature, that period can last days, weeks, months, or an entire winter. When the phenomenon of metabolic depression occurs in animals during the summer months, it is called aestivation.

The fourth paragraph runs:

Some species of mammals hibernate while gestating young, which are born either while the mother hibernates or shortly afterwards. For example, female polar-bears go into hibernation during the cold winter months in order to give birth to their offspring. The pregnant mothers significantly increase their body mass prior to hibernation, and this increase is further reflected in the weight of the offspring. The fat accumulation enables them to provide a sufficiently warm and nurturing environment for their newborns. During hibernation, they subsequently lose 15–27% of their pre-hibernation weight by using their stored fats for energy.

Another thematically disordered paragraph. The central theme seems to be the importance of the mother's body fat; the muddle occurs in the vague claim that with the fat the mother provides "a sufficiently warm and nurturing environment," in the claim that the mothers lose fat, and in the claim that the increase in body fat is reflected in the weight of the offspring rather than the loss of weight. The paragraph should run:

The females of hibernating species, like the female polar bear, gestate and sometimes give birth to their offspring during the inactive period. They therefore also eat to accumulate the extra body fat necessary for the offspring to be born fat themselves, reflected in the fact that mothers lose between 15 to 27% of the extra weight they gained, and also to make sure that the offspring can keep warm.

Thus the revised section would read:

Hibernation is a state of inactivity during winter months when in certain warm-blooded animals (or endotherms) the heart-rate and the rate of breathing slow, the body temperature drops, and the bodily processes by which energy is consumed and built up—metabolism—are also slowed. The lower breathing, heartbeat, temperature, and slowed metabolism function to conserve energy when sufficient food to maintain the normal metabolic rhythms is not available. Hence before entering into the metabolically depressed state, large animals eat more food than usual and store it as fat (hyperphagy), whereas many small species, instead of eating to deposit fat, store food in caches. Either way, the fat deposits and the caches must contain enough food to last for the entirety of the dormant period. Depending on the species, the individual's bodily condition, and the ambient temperature, that period can last days, weeks, months, or the entire winter. When the phenomenon of metabolic depression occurs in animals during the summer months, it is called aestivation.

The females of hibernating species, like the female polar bear, gestate and sometimes give birth to their offspring during the inactive period. The mothers-to-be therefore also eat to accumulate the extra body fat necessary for the offspring to be born fat themselves, reflected in the fact that mothers lose between 15 to 27% of the extra weight they gained, and also to make sure that, no matter how early in the mother's hibernation they will have been born, the offspring can keep warm.

The virtues of this revision? It is clearly focused and concise: what needs to be said is said once and in the fewest possible words, and nothing is said but what a reader needs to have a creditable understanding of the phenomenon if they read no further. That's the function of the opening section of an encyclopedia article.

As it now stands, the section is a mystifying blend of technobabble and not just irrelevant but downright contradictory statements. Its faults reflect the fact that the authors are not concerned with informing the lay reader, as they should be, but rather with showing that they are familiar with the technical aspects of the matter and with debates in the technical literature. In other words, I am sorry to say, they are showing off.

Since I am no expert, I cannot know whether I have included all of what counts as the minimal amount of information a layperson needs to have a solid grasp of the bare essentials of the phenomenon—I would really like to know, for instance, how animals actually get into the state: Do they curl up and go to sleep? Is sleep then a threshold state at which point some sort of seasonal "clock" at work in a system that regulates metabolism transforms the sleep into the state of hibernation?

I do know, however, that no layperson who reads my version will stumble over jargon or get lost in irrelevancies. Nevertheless, I make no claim that my "reader-friendly" version is the friendliest possible, so of course I welcome anatomies of my own oversights. Wordwright (talk) 02:11, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Origin?

One would like to know if it is a family trait or if hibernation is widely distributed between different groups of animal species? When did the phenomenon first appear, etc. Zzalpha (talk) 06:41, 12 February 2023 (UTC)