IOWA – Experts saw a unique sight while exploring the frozen outdoors of Iowa this week.
Katie Bunch Oswalk, with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, posted a video on social media of snapping turtles lying frozen in time under icy waters.
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Luckily, these snappers are willingly frozen and are just undergoing a process called brumation. This is a form of dormancy for reptiles.
“During brumation, their heart rate, body temperature and metabolism decrease,” a statement from the National Park Service reads.
A cold temperature change also means that reptiles can’t digest food for the whole winter.
It is worth noting that if temperatures rise for a day or two, reptiles may halt brumation and emerge to forage.
A snapping turtle lays in brumation under frozen waters.
(Katie Bunch Oswalk/Iowa Department of Natural Resources)
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, these critters can stay underwater for so long through a process called cloacal respiration, which draws oxygen from water as it passes over blood vessels in their hind end, which is full of them.
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Simply put, this process is like reptilian hibernation, but much more extreme.
This process allows these kinds of creatures to thrive, surviving in the freezing winter conditions, on top of the fact that reptiles can’t produce their own body heat.
