A possum has set an enviable record for doing absolutely nothing. After stuffing itself full of food in a laboratory, one curled up and hibernated for a record 367 days.
Some mammals, such as ground squirrels, hibernate for up to six months through winter, while a western jumping mouse (Zapus princeps) once hibernated for 320 days in a lab. That record has now been smashed by an Australian eastern pygmy possum (Cercartetus nanus) in Fritz Geiser’s lab at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales (Naturwissenschaften, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-007-0274-7).
It used just one-fortieth of the energy it…
