13 Animals That Teach Us How to Survive Winter

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The mix that winter brings is both beautiful and challenging. The season is trial by fire, testing everything from snow covered landscapes to icy winds, and how every living thing adapts to them. But nature is a good teacher. There are some animals that survive, and even rejoice, during the coldest of months, and we could learn a thing or two from their strategies. Watching how these animals manage allows us to learn about ways to survive the winter, whether it be staying warm, or saving energy.

Think about it: They don’t have heated homes, insulated jackets, or grocery stores, but they survive conditions that would have us all scrambling for warmth. Let’s dig a little deeper into some interesting critters and how they overcome nature’s cold and snowy challenges.

Arctic Fox: The Ultimate Coat Swap

The Arctic fox is like nature’s wardbrobe specialist. Its coat is brown or gray blending with rocky tundra during the summer. In winter, however, it turns snow white, for camouflage and insulation. The clever adaptation preserves the fox from predators, and aids the fox to find food where it is rather harshly frozen.

Black-Capped Chickadee: The Overnight Furnace

This tiny little bird survives cold nights by fluffing up its feathers and lowering his body temperature. The chickadee enters into a controlled state of hypothermia and saves precious energy. Literally talk about knowing how to chill. Maybe this technique could inspire us to think about energy efficiency in our own lives.

Wood Frog: Frozen, But Not Gone

Glass Frogs — Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Imagine becoming solid in winter and alive in spring. The wood frog does that very thing. Producing a natural antifreeze that protects its cells, it freezes the rest of its body. This way, the frog can survive the worst conditions. Scientists studying the wood frog, which can freeze and thaw without any apparent harm, hope one day to bring this knowledge to bear in medicine.

Beaver: Builder of Cozy Lodges

Beavers prepare for winter like overachieving homeowners. Built up out of mud and sticks, their lodges are stout and have underwater entrances to keep out predators and the cold. They store enough food inside to last the season. If you’ve ever gone and stocked up on canned soup and blankets before a blizzard, you’re a beaver!

Monarch Butterfly: The Long-Distance Traveler

Monarch butterflies head south to escape freezing temperatures when the temperature drops. It is an epic journey of thousands of miles to Mexico for generations of instinct and determination. This migration shows how to prepare and persevere. Fun fact: Monarchs often fly at altitudes as high as 10,000 feet!

Snowshoe Hare: A Seasonal Makeover

Just as the Arctic fox, the snowshoe hare changes its summer fur to a white winter coat. But its survival isn’t an aesthetic game. The hare’s hind feet are larger, and like snowshoes, help it to make fast progress through deep snow, with little track left behind. It’s the ultimate combination of style and function.

Groundhog: The Seasonal Snoozer

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Perhaps no animal hibernates as well as the groundhog, who snoozes for six months through winter. To conserve energy, they slow their heart rate and lower their body temperature. Sleeping, however, is not all about it — it is strategic rest. If only we humans could just nap our way through our heating bills.

Penguin: Teamwork in the Cold

The power of community is best demonstrated by Emperor penguins. To survive brutal Antarctic winters, they huddle in large groups, each taking turns in the center of the circle, where it’s the warmest. It’s a lesson in the strength of unity.

Grizzly Bear: The Fat Storage Expert

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Grizzlies get their fat up before hibernating in order to survive the winter on those reserves. For these bears, it’s all about the balance: They eat enough to be healthy, but not so much that they can’t move. Sometimes, we forget that it’s about preparation, as well as moderation.

Ant: A Master of the Stockpile

During warmer months, ants work tirelessly storing food for winter. The queen and young stay underground, safe from harm and the food supply is carefully managed by worker ants. Ant colonies are 80 percent more efficient than human supply chains for all practical purposes — a study published by Harvard University.

Caribou: The Cold-Weather Commuter

Thousands of miles can be covered by caribou in search of winter food, moving at times 3,000 miles in a year. With their thick coats and specialized noses which warm the air that they breathe, they are perfect for surviving frigid conditions. It’s not all about escape, migration is about survival through adaptability.

Honeybee: The Hive Heater

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Honeybees cluster together, and impart heat by vibrating their wings. Even when it’s freezing outside, the hive can stay around 90°F. Bees feed on honey they put away earlier in the year to fuel this effort. It is a lesson in teamwork, and preparation in one.

Polar Bear: The Ice-Hunting Specialist

Seals are the polar bear’s primary food source. They are excellent swimmers and have an ability to smell, finding prey a nigh mile away. Built for the cold, they’re being pushed out of their icy hunting grounds by climate change. The polar bear population could decline by 30 percent by 2050 unless current trends reverse themselves, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Disclaimer: This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.