![]() ![]() Some experts speculate that brumation is not just a survival mechanism. As temperatures rise in early March-end of April, they wake up and go back to business as usual. Throughout the winter they remain motionless in a state somewhere between sleep and death - not eating or defecating, and barely even breathing. Around this time, they will burrow into the bottom of a pond or shallow lake, or occasionally underground or in a hollow tree stump. In the wild, red-eared sliders become inactive around October. Calcium stored in the turtle’s shell play an important role in buffering the lactic acid produced as a byproduct of anaerobic metabolism. ![]() This is made possible by switching their cells from aerobic to anaerobic cellular respiration, dropping metabolic rate to barely a trickle. Jackson’s findings recorded in his book, Life in a Shell, where he writes that 3☌ seems to be the optimal temperature for prolonged anoxia in another North American species, Chrysemys picta. According to Complete suppression of protein synthesis during anoxia with no post-anoxia protein synthesis debt in the red-eared slider turtle Trachemys scripta elegans, red eared sliders are capable of surviving up to five days without oxygen at 61-64☏ (16-18☌), and they can go 4-5 MONTHS without oxygen at 37☏ (3☌)! This is supported by Donald C. Not only can they survive frigid temperatures, but they can also survive oxygen deprivation. Red-eared sliders and other pond sliders are particularly good at brumating. However, because they’re cold-blooded, reptiles can slow their metabolism down much more than mammals can, sleeping for weeks on end without losing a significant amount of body fat. Like mammals, reptiles brumate to survive long periods of cold temperatures and scarce food. Brumation is more or less the reptile equivalent of mammalian hibernation. ![]()
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