Talk:Aestivation

Extract from article to talk page
Estivation: The poorly defined term estivation, which has been called "summer sleep", refers to a dormancy that some species both vertebrates and invertebrates enter in response to high ambient temperatures or danger of dehydration or both. Land snails such as Helix and Otala become dormant during long periods of low humidity after sealing the enterance of the shell by secreting a diaphragm-like operculum that retards loss of water by evaporation. Many land crabs similarly spend dry seasons in an inactive state at the bottom of their burrows.

Lungfish (Protopterus) seal themselves inside a cocoon, in which a small tube leads itself from the fish's mouth to the exterior to allow ventilation of the lungs. This state is probably similar physiologically to hibernation, but it differs in its seasonal timing.

Extracted from: Animal Physiology, Randall et al

Rich  Farmbrough 14:38 6  March 2006 (UTC).

Why isent this in the actual article??? --[[User:RobHyman|RobHgkyyu 04:14, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

"Both land-dwelling and aquatic mammals undergo estivation." Should the 'mammals' be changed to 'animals'? None of the following examples are mammals. Aotd 23:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Question on epiphragm in snails
I have recently seen snails in a state of estivation in Cyprus on wooden and concrete fences. The epiphragm produced is extremely durable and difficult to break. Has anyone information about how snails dissolve this epiphragm at end of hibernation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.168.255.221 (talk) 20:53, 17 August 2009 (UTC)


 * In my experience it seems that a snail simply pushes the epiphragm out in one piece using its foot, in other words the epiphragm sort of "snaps out" around the edges. Judging by a Google search for "removing the epiphragm", this issue of the Nautilus seems to include an article that may confirm my observation: . The other thing to remember is that snails come out of estivation after it rains, when everything is wet and the air is damp, which may make this process easier. Invertzoo (talk) 21:59, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Removed inappropriate information
I removed the following from the end of the article:


 * The information above contradicts common beliefs about estivation, saying that it does not apply to mammals. Squirrels and chipmunks are said to be in estivation, not hibernation, in the worst of winter, with hibernation being a more dormant state, whereas with estivation the metabolism is merely slowed and so they may arouse and make an appearance on a sunny day.

It apparently refers, at least in part, to the paragraph that was above it (now the last paragraph in the article), which reads:


 * Until recently no primate, and no tropical mammal, was known to estivate. However, animal physiologist Kathrin Dausmann of Philipps University of Marburg, Germany, and coworkers presented evidence in the 24 June 2004 edition of Nature that the Madagascan fat-tailed dwarf lemur hibernates or estivates in a small cricket hollow for seven months of the year.

This paragraph (which the removed paragraph seems to be specifically contradicting), specifically mentions tropical mammals, not mammals in general.

Furthermore, placing a paragraph into an article in order to specifically point out the inaccuracy of the rest of the article, rather than boldly correcting the article (and providing a credible source) is unencyclopedic. This talk page is the place to sort out doubts, if we have them, not the text of the article itself.

According to Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, estivation is defined as,
 * 1 : to spend the summer usually at one place
 * 2 : to pass the summer in a state of torpor -- compare HIBERNATE

I believe the contributor of the removed paragraph may have been thinking of torpor. &mdash;CKA3KA (Skazka) (talk) 07:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Mammals section's "citation needed"
As of this writing, the Mammals section of the article alludes to a paper in the journal Nature but has a "citation needed" tag. The paper is "Physiology: Hibernation in a tropical primate" by Kathrin H. Dausmann, Julian Glos, Jörg U. Ganzhorn and Gerhard Heldmaier. It was published in Nature volume 429, pages 825-826, under the DOI 10.1038/429825a. Abstract: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v429/n6994/abs/429825a.html Note however that I have not read the paper and the abstract alone only alludes to hibernation, not estivation. 171.66.236.16 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:21, 13 September 2010 (UTC).
 * Referring to the actual article, there is nothing identified as a "cricket hollow." Therefore, I edited the text to refer to "tree holes," which is what the article says these animals use. Ed8r (talk) 19:33, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Comments and Suggestions for this Article
Overall, I think this article is very successful at providing the basic information on Aestivation. There are a lot of examples of particular organisms that Aestivate, and many go into more depth with how it is accomplished physiologically. But there were a couple things that I think could be investigated and then included. One thing is that I would like to see geographically where aestivation is found most frequently. I assume that as latitude increases, we eventually reach environments where it is never dry/hot enough for aestivation to occur, so finding a latitude range would be cool. Secondly, I would like to see more of a comparison to hibernation. I originally heard of aestivation as "hibernation but in the heat", so if there are any differences between hibernation and aestivation other than the temperature, I think it could be included. Good informative article already though.

Cjohnso4 (talk) 03:49, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

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