Freshwater Pulmonata do not appear to hibernate, such forms as _Limnaea_
and _Planorbis_ having been frequently seen crawling about beneath the
ice of frozen ponds. During periods of drought in England, however, they
commonly bury themselves in the mud, a habit which is also practised
during the dry season in the tropics by species of Prosobranchiate
Gastropods belonging to the genera _Ampullaria_, _Melania_ and others,
which lie dormant until the first rains rouse them from their lethargy.
Freshwater Pelecypoda (_Anodonta_, _Unio_) spend the European winter
buried deep in the muddy bottom of ponds and streams.
In cold and temperate latitudes a great majority of insects pass the
winter in a dormant state, either in the larval, pupal or imaginal
(reproductive) stages. In some the state of hibernation is complete in
the sense that although the insects may be roused from their lethargy to
the extent of movement by spells of warm weather, they do not leave
their hibernacula to feed; in others it is incomplete in the sense that
the insects emerge to feed, as in the case of the caterpillar of
_Euprepia fuliginosa_, or to take the wing as in the case of the midge
_Trichocera hiemalis_. Others again, like _Podura nivalis_ and _Boreus
hiemalis_, never appear to hibernate, at least in England. The insects
which hibernate as larvae belong to those species which pass more than
one season in that stage, such as the goat-moth (_Cossus ligniperda_),
cockchafers (_Melolontha_), stagbeetles (_Lucanus_) and dragon-flies
(_Libellula_), &c.; and to some species which, although they only live a
few months in this immature state, are hatched in the autumn or summer
and only reach the final stage of growth in the following spring, like
the butterflies of the genus _Argynnis_ (_paphia_, _aglaia_, &c.) in
England. As an instance of species which survive the winter in the
pupal or chrysalis stage may be cited the swallow-tailed butterfly of
Europe (_Papilio machaon_); while to the category of species which
hibernate as perfect insects belong many of the Coleoptera (Rhyncophora,
_Coccinellidae_), &c., as well as some Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera
and Lepidoptera (_Vanessa io_, _urticae_, &c.). In the case of the
social Hymenoptera it is only the fertilized queen wasp out of the nest
that survives the frost of winter, all the workers dying with the onset
of cold in the autumn; the common hive bees (_Apis mellifica_), although
they retire to the hive, do not hibernate, the numbers and activity of
the individuals within the hive being sufficient to keep up the
temperature above soporific point. Ants also remain actively at work
underground unless the temperature falls several degrees below zero.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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