Winter World

Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich, Ecco, 2019.

The naturalist Bernd Heinrich describes the variety of strategies adopted by animals to survive the cold. 

Ways of Dealing with the Winter Cold

• feathers as insulation from air and water

• thick coat of winter fur

• lowering blood freezing point with glycerol and sorbitol

• increasing amount of hemoglobin in the blood

• hibernation

• building shelters, burrows, nests, woodpecker holes, beaver lodges

• leaf shedding by trees to reduce snow load

• hiding under iced-over lakes (turtles)

• migrations of birds, bats and butterflies