Talk:Estivation

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[edit] Extract from article to talk page

Estivation: The poorly defined term estivation, which has been called "summer sleep", refers to a dormancy that some species both vertebrates and invertebrates enter in response to high ambient temperatures or danger of dehydration or both. Land snails such as Helix and Otala become dormant during long periods of low humidity after sealing the enterance of the shell by secreting a diaphragm-like operculum that retards loss of water by evaporation. Many land crabs similarly spend dry seasons in an inactive state at the bottom of their burrows.

Lungfish (Protopterus) seal themselves inside a cocoon, in which a small tube leads itself from the fish's mouth to the exterior to allow ventilation of the lungs. This state is probably similar physiologically to hibernation, but it differs in its seasonal timing.

Extracted from: Animal Physiology, Randall et al

Rich Farmbrough 14:38 6 March 2006 (UTC).

Why isent this in the actual article??? --RobH 04:14, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

"Both land-dwelling and aquatic mammals undergo estivation." Should the 'mammals' be changed to 'animals'? None of the following examples are mammals. Aotd 23:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed inappropriate information

I removed the following from the end of the article:

The information above contradicts common beliefs about estivation, saying that it does not apply to mammals. Squirrels and chipmunks are said to be in estivation, not hibernation, in the worst of winter, with hibernation being a more dormant state, whereas with estivation the metabolism is merely slowed and so they may arouse and make an appearance on a sunny day.

It apparently refers, at least in part, to the paragraph that was above it (now the last paragraph in the article), which reads:

Until recently no primate, and no tropical mammal, was known to estivate. However, animal physiologist Kathrin Dausmann of Philipps University of Marburg, Germany, and coworkers presented evidence in the 24 June 2004 edition of Nature that the Madagascan fat-tailed dwarf lemur hibernates or estivates in a small cricket hollow for seven months of the year.

This paragraph (which the removed paragraph seems to be specifically contradicting), specifically mentions tropical mammals, not mammals in general.

Furthermore, placing a paragraph into an article in order to specifically point out the inaccuracy of the rest of the article, rather than boldly correcting the article (and providing a credible source) is unencyclopedic. This talk page is the place to sort out doubts, if we have them, not the text of the article itself.

According to Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, estivation is defined as,

1 : to spend the summer usually at one place

2 : to pass the summer in a state of torpor -- compare HIBERNATE

I believe the contributor of the removed paragraph may have been thinking of torpor. —CKA3KA (Skazka) (talk) 07:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)