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from the bad-dime-for-a-stubbed-ub-nobe dept.
The Charlotte Observer reports on freakish behavior being exhibited by alligators in one swamp in eastern North Carolina.
Alligators in one eastern North Carolina swamp have proven it was no fluke last winter, when they survived a cold snap by freezing themselves in place with their noses above the ice.
It happened again Monday at The Swamp Park, only this time more -- and bigger -- alligators joined in
The video posted by nosey park manager George Howard shows several of the alligators frozen in place here
A few alligators exhibited this behavior last year, surviving a freeze for several days without ill effect. This year more joined in, including one gator 11 feet in length.
Howard says the alligators seem to sense when the water is at the freezing point and they respond by poking their nose above the surface “at just the right moment.”
Once frozen, they enter “a state of brumation, like hibernating,” until the water thaws
No word on how many ice hockey rinks across the swamp is. According to The Spruce Pets Brumation is a dormant state in reptiles similar, but not identical to hibernation in mammals:
During hibernation, a mammal is sleeping and does not have to eat or drink. But brumation is not a true sleep and the reptile still needs to drink water. A brumating reptile may have days where it will awake, show some activity, drink water, and then go back to its dormant state. Hibernating mammals, on the other hand, are in a deep sleep where they don't need to eat or drink.
I believe I mastered brumation around my sophomore year.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @12:48PM (3 children)
I'm pretty sure it's just a small region of their body that is actually encased in ice.
the rest of it is immersed in liquid water.
otherwise what's to stop their blood from freezing (and causing all kinds of problems)?
I'm curious what kind of damage the tissue that is frozen sustains. can't find out since websites are stupid about adds and stuff.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:43PM (1 child)
I read something years ago about fish and amphibians being undamaged when frozen. Something in the cells acts like an antifreeze, so the water in the cells don't actually freeze. If the cells aren't bursting from expanding ice, there is no damage.
After three searches, I'm failing to find anything definitive - http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=5448 [ucsb.edu] That page links to another page, but apparently the second link has changed. Ehhh - if anyone with a biology background comes along, maybe he/she can tell us more.
(Score: 3, Informative) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday January 24 2019, @05:28PM
It seems it is specific to particular fishes native to colder waters and not common, though often appears as "trivia" that leaves out the details; I saw a lot of short trivia articles with similar wording, which suggests to me there's an older parent article out there from sometime before 2004 I think.
This seems to be a decent article on the reality of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifreeze_protein [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 24 2019, @05:07PM
If they were encased in ice, not only is the blood likely to freeze, but they'd probably be crushed by the pressure of the ice crystals as they expand. An unhappy side effect of water becoming less dense when it freezes despite having the same amount of matter.