scientificpokedex:Requested by @auto-manic​I like staying in bed on a cold winter morning as much as

scientificpokedex:Requested by @auto-manic​I like staying in bed on a cold winter morning as much as the next person, but today we’re going to talk about an animal that spends the majority of it’s life hibernating. Turns out, Snom and Frosmoth are one of those pokémon where the designer found a real-life bug in our world, looked at it, and said “Yeah that’s a pokémon!” (see also: Cutiefly). The Snom line is very clearly based off of the Wooly Bear Moths.These moths are incredible. To start, they are one of the most long-lived moth species in the world - they can live up to 14 years old - and only 4 weeks of that is spend as a moth. For the rest of their lives, these little guys live as caterpillars. For a bug that lives in the far north, this means having to survive more than a dozen of freezing winters, where temperatures reach as low as -70 °Celsius (-95 °Fahrenheit). Think about that for a moment - that is cold enough that your blood would freeze, your heart would stop, and your muscles would be unable to move. This insect is able to survive being frozen completely solid.To make it through the harsh winters, this caterpillar spins a special kind of cocoon every year, called a hibernaculum. Translated from latin, hibernaculum means “winter tent” - Snom spins its very own tent to camp out for the winter!Inside of its hibernaculum, the caterpillar enters diapause - think of it like extreme hibernation. During hibernation, an animal is asleep, but continues to breath, heart beats, and grow. In diapause, an animal is completely suspended. No heartbeat, no breath, no aging, the very mitochondria in its cells stop producing energy. By most definitions, this animal basically dies once a year, but it is able to crawl back out of its cocoon every spring. It’s body is able to survive because inside of its cocoon, these caterpillars produce their own cryoprotectants, which are essentially an organic antifreeze (you can read more about diapause in our Glaceon article).Every winter, Snom spins itself into a special cocoon called a hibernaculum, and enters an extreme state of hibernation. Its heart stops, it is frozen solid, and it is able to withstand extreme temperatures by producing its own antifreeze. -- source link

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