Sunday, 30 August 2020

A New Study Says Animal Hibernation Is A Remedy To Harsh Winters


Image courtesy of Crystal Shin, fair use doctrine
 


Joel Kontinen

Some 250 millions of years , a Seussian-looking beast with clawed digits, a turtle-like beak and two tusks may have survived Antarctica's chilly winters not by fruitlessly foraging for food, but by curling up into a sleep-like state, meaning that according to evolutionists, it may be the oldest animal on record to hibernate, a new study finds.

 

Analysis of this Triassic  vertebrate's ever-growing tusks revealed that it may have spent part of the year hibernating, a strategy that is still used by modern animals to tough out long winters. Like hibernators alive today, these ancient animals, who belong to the extinct genus Lystrosaurus, slowed down their metabolism and underwent periods of minimal activity when conditions got rough. 

 

"The closest analogue we can find to the 'stress marks' that we observed in Antarctic Lystrosaurus tusks are stress marks in teeth associated with hibernation in certain modern animals," Megan Whitney the lead author of the study, said in the statement

Lystrosaurus,  could grow up to 2.4 meters or 8 feet long. The genus managed to survive the planet's largest mass extinction, which happened at the end of the Permian period about 252 million years ago and killed 70% of land vertebrates. Lystrosaurus fossils have been found in India, China, Russia, Africa and Antarctica, according to the statement

So, this animal was older that the dinosaurs and managed to solve the Permian extinction  

Source

Saplakoglu, Yasemin, 2020. Seussian beast survived the Triassic by taking lots of naps. Live Science  28 August