Groundhogs are starting to disappear for the year... and what happens to their bodies underground is pretty wild.
During deep hibernation, a groundhog's body temperature can drop from around 99°F to as low as 37°F. Their heart rate can fall from roughly 80 beats per minute to only 4-5, and their breathing can slow to about one breath every few minutes.
They'll spend the winter surviving almost entirely on the fat they worked so hard to pack on all summer.
So when you stop seeing those chunky little bodies waddling around soon, they aren't just sleeping. Their entire body has essentially shifted into energy-saving mode until spring.
Stanley here will be staying awake with us - as he has epilepsy and needs medications daily to keep him healthy. By controlling his environment, we can stop the signals that he would normally get to tell him it's time to hibernate - but his wild friends are getting ready to clock out for the season.
I wonder if not hibernating extends or shortens a groundhogs lifespan. How long until we can CRISPR ourselves a hibernation gene and take the winter off? Huge cost savings
It seems the main idea is to extend their lives by avoiding the caloric needs of maintaining their body temperature throughout the winter when it's freezing cold and food is scarce. Much like "hibernating" a laptop will greatly extend its battery life until it can be plugged in by having just the bare minimum of things continuing to use power to preserve its current state.
I'm still a hibernation noob myself, so that is my current understanding.
You would be surprised how many people don’t realize that hibernation still uses battery power.
I was going to say something else, but I went to check myself first as I'm not much of a computer person, and there was so much conflicting information on hibernation using battery or not.
Most sites and comments say there is no power used after the hibernate file is created and saved to the HDD.
Dell and Microsoft's sites both say they use "less power than sleep."
Now I'm not so sure my analogy was correct. Even if hibernate does use zero draw, it's still taking power to create the hibernate save state and to turn the power back on, so I'm not sure if that is what they are referring to or if there are still active components. I saw people say that things like the ethernet port are not active like in sleep when Wake on Ethernet is enabled, so I'm not sure what would still be active after a hibernate file is created. Some comments said there is still natural loss from the battery cells just from the passing of time, but that wouldn't be considered drawing of current, but would still take the battery to zero after enough time.
I feel I've confused myself over something that should be simple. 🤪
If the computer can be “woken up” then the devices, screen lid detector, mouse/keyboard, Ethernet for wake-on-lan, etc. are using power to stay in a state of sensing. So it will always be using some power or you would have to use the power button to wake it up.
Thanks for the explanation!
Groundhogs store jerry cans of gas all summer.
Wat
I got up the motivation to search it up briefly...
A gene cluster called the “fat mass and obesity (FTO) locus” plays an important role in hibernators’ abilities, the researchers found. Intriguingly, humans have these genes too.
https://healthcare.utah.edu/newsroom/news/2025/07/hibernator-superpowers-may-lie-hidden-human-dna
:soon:
Great read, thanks for sharing!
It's bewildering to think of all the amount of hidden genetic tools or junk that we all carry around with us unknowingly.
This isn't extra poundage I'm carrying around! It's a biological tool chest! 😀
Or on the other hand: