A bold strategy… but one that works wonders for cold-blooded creatures.
Humans and animals alike have been trying to figure out how to stay warm after getting hit by a nasty winter storm that brought snow, ice and freezing rain to much of the lower 48 states. The biggest problem with the winter weather is that the cold air has stuck around, leaving much of the precipitation on the ground (with minimal melting) and complicating the recovery process.
That’s most definitely the case in Nashville, which got hit incredibly hard by the ice storm that formed in the south.
And southwest, the story is much of the same. The state of Texas didn’t get the worst of the winter weather, but the Lone Star State has still had to deal with prolonged freezing temperatures. To be frank, a state like Texas just isn’t used to having snow and ice on the ground, and they definitely don’t care for it being so cold that bodies of water freeze over.
Gator Country, a live alligator rescue center in Beaumont, Texas, can certainly attest to that.
Just a few days ago, they were still dealing with bitter cold temperatures (it looks like it’s currently 30 or so degrees above freezing there now). And the alligators in Gator Country were having to do something called “brumation.” If you aren’t familiar with the term, think of it like hibernation.
Cold-blooded animals like alligators have no other choice but to go into brumation when the weather gets cold. They become less active, eat a minimal amount, and have a decrease in their metabolic rate. It’s a natural instinct for the creatures to go into brumation, and while it might look life-threatening from our perspective… they are actually doing it to survive.
The way that alligators go into their brumation state is quite the sight. When they start to anticipate freezing temperatures, the gators will submerge themselves in the water and then stick their snouts up through the surface to breathe. The rest of their body stays underneath the surface of the ice that eventually forms (where it’s actually warmer), and their snout becomes frozen outside of the ice, allowing for them to still breathe.
Then they just wait for it to warm up, like this alligator was seen doing in the Gator Country rescue center:
“This is a LIVE, FROZEN gator. A gator will slow their heart rate down to only 3 BPM, while freezing everything but their nose in the ice to ride out the freezes.”
Nature is pretty amazing, huh?
Now, I can’t imagine that’s a super comfortable position for an alligator to be in for a long period of time. However, they are just doing what it takes to survive, and gators typically live in areas where it won’t stay freezing for long if things do actually freeze over. Remember, it’s survival of the fittest… not survival of the warmest.
Being warm and cozy hasn’t ever hurt a living animal, but in situations like this, the gator has to actually choose to get stuck in the ice in order to stay alive. One of those “things are going to get worse before they get better” situation, I suppose…
