Able to hibernate
Hibernation is an extended period of deep sleep, or torpor, that allows animals to survive winter extremes. Reducing metabolic rate and lowering body temperature enables survival through cold periods when food is scarce or has little energy value. Hibernating species usually work hard to build up large fat reserves before they bed down, and subsist on this during their torpor. They might wake up at intervals to defecate or top up on food.
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Monarch migration 
Bulking up 
Dormouse hibernation
Sleepy dormouse
The Nature of Britain
One of the few British mammals that truly hibernates can go for months without moving.
Polar bears emerge
Planet Earth
Cubs see the world for the very first time as the Arctic winter ends.
Siberian hibernation
Realms of the Russian Bear
Many animals hibernate in burrows to survive the winter months of Siberia.
Species with this adaptation
Amphibians
Common toad 
Siberian salamander Insects
Harlequin ladybird 
Large blue butterfly 
Purple emperor butterfly Mammals
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Little bent-wing bat
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Black bear
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Brown bear
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Polar bear
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Hedgehog
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Long-eared hedgehog
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Arctic ground squirrel
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Dormouse
Reptiles
Grass snake 
Gopher tortoise About
Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate. Hibernating animals conserve energy, especially during winter when food is short, tapping energy reserves, body fat, at a slow rate. It is the animal's slowed metabolic rate which leads to a reduction in body temperature and not the other way around.
Hibernation may last several days or weeks depending on species, ambient temperature, and time of year. The typical winter season for a hibernator is characterized by periods of hibernation interrupted by sporadic euthermic arousals wherein body temperature is restored to typical levels. 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 sleep. This has been supported by some evidence in the arctic ground squirrel.
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Other Behavioural pattern Adaptations
- Able to aestivate
- Able to hibernate
- Arboreal
- Capable of torpor
- Fossorial
- Nocturnal
- Nomadic
- Parasitic
- Troglophilic
Habitats where this adaptation is useful
Elsewhere on the web
- Hibernation (wikipedia.org)
Site links
BBC links
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