When cold weather comes many kinds of frogs swim to the bottoms of ponds and lakes where they rest on the bottom or partially burrow into the mud. Of course when the frog is frozen it doesn't breathe nor does its heart beat. While frozen, ice forms around the frog's organs, but individual cells remain unfrozen and intact. Their veins fill with an antifreeze-like mixture of sugars and sugar alcohols, and then the dried-out frogs simply freeze. Some frogs in the far north burrow under the forest floor's leaves and debris, and when freezing weather comes more than half of the water in their bodies goes out. Sometimes amphibians such as toads hibernate on land after digging below the frost line, possibly three feet or more! Certain salamanders may also hibernate deep below the ground's surface, but they can't dig the way toads can, so they must search for abandoned burrows or other natural holes. The message here is that sometimes in very simple ways we humans can help amphibians cope with their temperature problems. At the left, in a picture provided by Paul, a Common Toad, Bufo bufo, peeps from a tunnel opening on a very hot summer day. The castle is visited by frogs, toads and salamanders who take shelter there - all together - both during the winter and summer's hottest days. Paul van de Velde in the Netherlands has a garden next to a pond where he built a "castle" consisting of two roof-tile tunnels covered with sand topped with a layer of silt. The picture shows a Mexican Treefrog, Smilisca baudinii, estivating in a house's rain gutter during the Yucatan's long, hot dry season. The main way amphibians and other non-warm-blooded animals deal with this through hibernation during long cold periods, and estivation during long hot and/or dry times. This is a real problem for all amphibians wherever big changes in temperature occur. If we get cold, we sweat, and as the sweat evaporates it cools our bodies.Īmphibian bodies can't do that. HIBERNATION: The condition or period of an animal or plant spending the winter in a dormant stateĮSTIVATION: The prolonged period of dormancy of an animal during a hot or dry period If a warm-blooded animal like one of us humans gets cold, the body speeds up its metabolism, producing internal head to keep us warm. DORMANCY: A deep-sleep state when normal body functions are suspended or slowed down
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