There are many animals in the biological world in order to adapt to the external environment and choose to hibernate, they do not eat or drink to hide in their nests, a few months, the world's longest hibernation time of animals is sleeping mice, their hibernation time is up to 9 months, their life expectancy is usually 5 years, but in 3/4 of the time, they are often starved to death in sleep.
The world's longest hibernating animals, sleeping mice (up to 9 months) There are thousands of animals on the earth, which animals are hibernating? There are 14 main species of animals, and the animal that has hibernated the longest is the sleeping mouse.
It is the smallest and shyest mammal in the UK, and for about 9 months of spring, late autumn and winter, sleeping mice hibernate. Their lifespan is usually 5 years, but for 3/4 of the time, they are sleeping, and what is more terrifying is that they often starve to death during long sleep because they cannot eat enough food before hibernation.
And even in the summer when they are not hibernating, they sleep all day long, and only at night do they come out to move around, jumping around on thorny branches and foraging for their favorite berries. Sleeping rats hibernate, breathing almost stop sleeping rats get their name from snoozing. It can nap at any time, even in noisy and chaotic places. Sleeping mice also have a long hibernation period. There is a species of sleeping mouse distributed in Europe, which hibernates for 9 months of 1 year. In hibernation, they do not eat or move, their breathing almost stops, their bodies become stiff, and no sound from the outside world can wake them up.
Sleeping rats look very much like squirrels, very small, weighing only 30-100 grams, short limbs, dragging a long, hairy tail behind them, bent toes and claws, good at climbing trees. It generally lives in woods, bushes and other places, feeding on dried fruits and seeds. The breeding season is held every summer. Sleeping rats are often starved to death during sleep, although they are the longest hibernating animals in the world, they have a strange set of escape skills. If its tail is caught, it quickly sheds its outer skin, leaving its enemies with only a little fur and escaping.
Researchers found that sleeping mice can not take in enough food in the autumn, so they have to go into hibernation hungry; due to the lack of sufficient energy in the body, sleeping mice often die of hunger during long sleep, resulting in a large number of sleeping mice, and the number is rapidly decreasing. Sleeping rats will dig holes and hide in the ground if it gets cold outside. Or they sleep in clumps under the leaves. When their body temperature reaches a tipping point, they wake up, do some "rat gymnastics" to warm up, and then continue to sleep until April.
Like squirrels, sleeping mice are very good at climbing trees and jumping on trees. Although sleeping mice look like house mice, squirrels are closer cousins to them. So why do sleeping rats jump between thorny branches? The reason is that on the thorny branches they are more likely to find their favorite food: berries.
In the summer, eating berries is the dream of sleeping mice. The buds of plants and insects are also among the favorite foods of sleeping mice. In the fall, sleeping mice turn their foraging targets to nuts and plant seeds. Their unusually sharp front teeth can easily bite through the nut's hard crust.
But the most important reason people rarely see sleeping mice is that they are almost always sleeping. In late autumn, winter, and for most of the spring, sleeping mice are in a state of hibernation. Even if it is not in the season of hibernation, they are still asleep all day long. A sleeping mouse has a lifespan of five years, but three-quarters of the time they are sleeping.
On summer nights, sleeping mice move around. But when it comes to autumn, they will create a nest on the ground with leaves and weeds. They often hide their nests between tangled roots or in bushes. There, sleeping mice spend most of the year sleeping, often rolling their bodies into a small ball.
There are 7 genera and 15 species of sleeping rats, which are widely distributed, from the United Kingdom in the west to Japan in the east, from Sweden in the north, to southern Africa and India in the south. There are 2 genera and 2 species in China: the sleeping mouse and the Sichuan hairy-tailed sleeping mouse. Sleeping mouse, also known as forest sleeping mouse, body length 8.5 to 12 cm, body size is similar to that of the rats; the ear shell is slightly short and round; the tail length is 7.5 to 11.5 cm, the tail shaft is covered with rat ash or dark gray-brown dense hairs, the tail side hair is longer, growing on both sides; the head is flanked from the base of the ear through the eyes to the nose each have a black spot, the back of the body and the top of the head from yellow brown, reddish brown to dark brown, the body side hair color is slightly gray, and the abdomen coat color is milky yellow. It is widely distributed, from Italy and Switzerland to the north of Xinjiang and the western mountains of the Mongolian People's Republic.