Hibernating Tortoises Slumbering Away Inside a Refrigerator




Photo: London Media

Yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you: those are tortoises in Shirley Neely’s refrigerator. She has 75 of them hibernating happily next to her (scant) groceries!

On every shelf, wrapped in tea towels, are slumbering tortoises. The smaller ones are snuggled up in a biscuit tin, but the bigger fellows are laid out side-by-side in their makeshift sleeping bags.

Mrs Neely who runs the Jersey-based Tortoise Sanctuary, had to set up the fridges because of the particularly mild winter. Her tortoises hibernate for up to three months between December and March, and need steady temperatures between 3c and 8c.

They are in danger of waking early if it heats up - and then do not have enough body weight to keep themselves warm and not enough energy to eat or drink. But fridges, at a steady 4c to 6c, are the perfect environment.

Mrs Neely said: "It’s much easier to maintain a constantly cool temperature with a fridge than it is with our ever-warming climate."

Blast global warming! But hooray for refrigeration! Link - via Spluch


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Posted on February 25, 2008 at 6:57 am by Alex
Category: Animal



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