December 16, 2020 at 9:00 am
Arctic ground squirrels can survive harsh winters with below-freezing temps by holing up for some eight months without eating. These hibernators “live at the most extreme edge of existence, just barely hovering over death, and we don’t fully understand how this works,” says Sarah Rice, a biochemist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
By snooping on what’s going on inside these squirrels, researchers now have a better idea. Nutrients recycled from muscle breakdown help the animals get by during hibernation, Rice and her colleagues report December 7 in
Nature Metabolism.
From autumn to spring, Arctic ground squirrels (