Aestivation

Introduced Theba pisana snails aestivating on a row of fence posts in Kadina, South Australia

Aestivation, spelled estivation in the US, is one way an animal can go dormant, which is like being asleep.

Aestivation is similar to hibernation, but the animal does it when it is hot instead of when it is cold. The animals stops moving and it slowly uses much less energy (food). The animal does this when the temperature is high and the weather is dry. Lungfish have been doing this since the Devonian period millions of years ago. Many animals aestivate, including the Nile crocodile, many snails, and lady beetles.

Invertebrate and vertebrate animals aestivate so they do not die from the heat or from drying out. Both land- and water-living animals can do aestivation.

Aestivation Media

• 

  Theba pisana snails aestivating on Foeniculum vulgare in Montbazin, France

• 

  Numerous individuals of the snail Cernuella virgata aestivating on a wire fence near Glanum, in the south of France.

• Aestivation has been put forward as the most likely explanation why this therapsid cynodont Thrinaxodon liorhinus shared its burrow with a temnospondyl amphibian, Broomistega putterilli.

Related pages

• Torpor
• Dormancy
• Hibernation