Distinguishing torpor, hibernation and aestivation

- is the dropping of body temperature to approximately ambient temperature for a part of each day regardless of season. - reducing energy demands over that part of the day in which the animals are inactive - in torpor, the animals dont seem to see, hear or feel anything that surrounds them.

- Bats, the California pocket mouse, and the dormouse who sleep during daytime but are up and active at night .

- Hummingbirds and frogs who are up and active during the day but sleep the night away.

- long seasonal torpor - physiological changes as decreased blood sugar, increased liver glycogen, altered concentration of blood hemoglobins, altered carbon dioxide and oxygen content in the blood, altered muscle tone, and darkened skin - heart rate, respiration, and total metabolism fall and body temperatures fall below 10 C - acidosis ( high levels of CO2 and acid)

- groundhog feed heavily in late summer to store large fat reserves from which they draw energy during hibernation - chipmunks lay up store of food - they spend less time in torpor

- Although popularly said hibernating, black, grizzly, and female popular bears do not. Instead they enter a unique winter sleep from which they easily rouse. They do not enter on extreme hypothermia - they recycle urea from urine through the bloodstream. The urea is degraded into amino acids that are reincorporated in plasma protiens

- animals that aestivates are trying to escape from the environmental condition that is happening - this protects animals from high temperature and drought - body, breathing and heartbeat slows down - animals dont grow, move or eat during this time - aestivates during the middle of the summer

 Animals

have a more complex and more energy-expensive problem than plants in maintaining water balance. All animals possess a more or less universal mechanism, the excretory system. The system is simple in some animals and complex in others.

 Water

animals osmosis skin and gill membranes

Amphibians

Terrestrial

animals drinking eating andrespiration

 Animals

of semi-arid and regions may

either: - evade drought by moving the dry season - move to area where permanent water is available

some animals remain active during the dry season by lowering the temperature they breathe out

some animals reduces daytime losses of moisture by becoming hyperthermic - a substantial rise in daytime body temperature reduces the need for evaportion - reduces metabolic rate by lowering tits internal production of heat

In addition some desert mammals can tolerate a certain degree of dehydration. Desert rabbits may withstand water losses of up to 50 percent and camels up to 27 percent of their body weight