Do penguins and polar bears hibernate?

Neither penguins nor polar bears need to hibernate.

The polar bear, the king of the Arctic Ocean, does not need to hibernate in the world. Bears in other places have the habit of hibernating. Northeast China is called "squat warehouse". They can sleep comfortably for several months by consuming the fat stored in their bodies.

However, polar bears don't hibernate, but just shrink their heads and sleep for a few hours in the worst weather. Their thick fluff and almost the same thick fat layer in their bodies play an excellent role in keeping warm.

They can sleep well in spite of the heavy snow and storm. Penguins don't hibernate, but they walk in groups to keep warm. Penguin feathers are three to four times denser than birds of the same size, and its function is to regulate body temperature.

Although penguins have basically the same feet as other birds, their bones are hard and their feet are short and flat. This feature, like the short wings of two paddles, enables penguins to "fly" underwater.

Although the Antarctic is extremely cold, penguins' feathers have become overlapping scales after tens of millions of years of snow storms. This special feather coat is not only difficult to soak in seawater.

Even if the temperature is close to MINUS 100 degrees Celsius, you can't break through its insulation line. Antarctica is rich in land and vast in sea surface, and abundant marine plankton has become a rich food source for penguins.

Extended data

The reason why animals hibernate:

Lack of food is the main reason why animals hibernate. If there is enough food, many bears don't hibernate, but hunt all winter. But when there is not much food, bears will hide in caves for the winter.

The body temperature of small mammals will drop rapidly during hibernation, but the body temperature of bears will only drop by about 4 degrees, but the heart rate will slow down by 75%. Once the bear begins to hibernate, its energy source changes from diet to fat stored in the body.

Tom evans, a field biologist working in the polar bear program of the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, said that this chemical action has changed dramatically.

After fat is burned, metabolism will produce toxins. But when bears hibernate, cells will break down these toxins into harmless substances and recycle them.

There is no such mechanism in the human body. If the toxin accumulates, people will die within a week. This biochemical action also allows bears to recover water from their bodies, so they don't urinate during hibernation.

Polar bears can use the mechanism of fat burning even if they don't hibernate. This awake hibernation keeps polar bears active all winter without hiding in caves.