What animal is Australian and hibernates in the winter?

Question

What animal is Australian and hibernates in the winter?

Answer 1

Short-beaked echidnas undergo both torpor and hibernation, expressed to different extents in different climates. We propose that when well fed animals hibernate in comparatively mild climates, with food available, they are using the winter cold as a resource and "putting themselves on ice" until the next breeding season. That is, echidnas are hibernating in mild climates for energy advantage, not from energetic necessity. We interpret the use of hibernation by echidnas in the more severe climates, where there is a food shortage, as a specialisation of a more general, ancestral capacity. There are also avian, marsupial and eutherian species in which torpor in mild climates appears to be practised for energetic advantage rather than from necessity. The similarity of patterns of hibernation in echidnas, mountain pigmy possums and arctic ground squirrels emphasises the likelihood that torpor and hibernation are plesiomorphic across all three Sub-classes of Mammalia. Attention is drawn to parallels between the daily/seasonal cycles in the body temperatures of torpidators/hibernators and those seen commonly in reptiles, and to the extent to which thermoregulatory mechanisms in reptiles foreshadow those in mammals and birds. The entry of mammals into torpor/hibernation may involve a reversal of the same physiological mechanisms which accompanied the evolution of endothermy from ectothermy, and echidnas may provide a useful model. A stepwise scenario for the evolution of endothermy is presented, with torpor/hibernation as a central theme. In presenting this scenario, we take care to distinguish between pattern and mechanism, recognising that the terms torpor and hibernation, like poikilothermy and homeothermy, are descriptive of patterns, not mechanisms, and that this limitation of the current terminology must be recognised

if you want to know more about echidnas go to this link...hope this helped you :)

one more thing i would like to add koala bears do not hybernate (no offense pls)i dont think koala bears hibernate...they liove in souther parts and so they get enough foos and they sleep upto 19 hours..

Answer 2

I am not a animal expert but, I know that bears hibernate. The only Australian bear that I can think of is the Koala. I hope that helped!