Was this designed? or can evolution be credited? The Resilient Brain of the Arctic Ground Squirrel?
Question
AS A hibernating animal begins its sleep, its body temperature cools. Arctic ground squirrels body temperature drops to 26.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Every two or three weeks during hibernation, the arctic ground squirrel shivers itself back to its normal body temperature of 97.5 degrees and does not get cold again for 12 to 15 hours. Researchers say that this warming period plays a role in the brain’s survival. During hibernation the arctic ground squirrel’s head seems to remain slightly warmer than the rest of its body. During lab experiments, the neck temperatures of the squirrels never dropped below 33.3 degrees. Here is the rest of the short article, very interesting!
https://www.jw.org/finder?wtlocale=E&docid=102013249&srcid=share
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General Physics
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Answer ( 1 )
Why do you sleep at night? This is probably the same type of answer.
I could give hypotheses but not answers.
It appears that the brain needs some time to reorganize itself regularly.
For us this happens during sleep when the brain is able to shed other tasks.
Now what if the squirrels brain is in hibernation when it is cold so it needs to warm up periodically to do the same things that we do in our sleep.
If this is true then all YOU have to do is to discover whether this hypothesis about sleeping is valid and that in turn would possibly tell you why the Arctic Ground Squirrel evolved as it did.