September 22nd is the beginning of autumn: sleepyheads say goodnight now

Hamburg (ots) - September 22nd marks the beginning of autumn according to the calendar. While we humans look forward to colorful leaves and cooler days with a cup of tea, dormice in the wildlife kingdom have already put on a good meal. Insects and fatty tree fruits such as hazelnuts, beechnuts, and acorns, as well as sugary raspberries and blackberries, were at the top of their menu. Now the native dormice – including the edible dormouse, the garden dormouse, the tree dormouse, and the hazel dormouse – are ready to say "goodnight." They spend up to seven months curled up in protected hiding places such as burrows, rock crevices, or tree stumps, sometimes even in abandoned bird nesting boxes. All dormice are masters of energy conservation: For them, hibernation is a survival strategy, because in the cold season, there simply isn't enough food to stay active. In energy-saving mode, they drastically reduce their bodily functions, slowing their breathing and heart rate to a minimum. Garden dormice, for example, can lower their body temperature to -1 degrees Celsius, and their heart rate then beats only twice per minute. This is how the animals survive even the harsh winter months. "For hibernators, an undisturbed, safe place to retreat is vital for their survival," says Julia-Marie Battermann, conservationist at the German Wildlife Foundation. After all, dormice can theoretically live up to nine years in the wild. A few dormouse specimens even reach a record-breaking 13 years—a great age for such a small rodent!

Dormice like to use hiding places in old orchards, in brush piles, or in hedges in natural gardens as shelter. Leaving piles of leaves or brushwood lying around and not trimming dense blackberry hedges creates important habitats for them. "Gardeners should be considerate when gardening now so that nests are not destroyed or the animals are not awakened. Dogs should also be strictly discouraged from rummaging under hedges or around tree roots for the sleeping dormice," says Battermann. If nests are destroyed and the animals awakened, they have to laboriously restart their metabolism – a strenuous effort that consumes valuable energy reserves and can endanger their survival during the long autumn and winter.

Incidentally, dormice (Gliridae) are one of the oldest living rodent families. Fossil finds prove their age at more than 40 million years. "So dormice were already climbing through the vegetation at least 30 million years before our ancestors, the great apes, existed," says Battermann. Their strategy of spending the winter in this special state and thus bridging the long period without food has made them very successful. Today, however, other factors are affecting them: The fragmentation of the landscape, the decline of insects, the use of environmental toxins, and forest monocultures have led to the garden dormouse, for example, being classified as "critically endangered" on Germany's Red List of mammals. The German Wildlife Foundation is therefore committed to protecting the garden dormouse in the Harz Mountains in Saxony-Anhalt by using wildlife cameras to investigate the occurrence of the rare dormouse. "The goal is to improve the habitat for garden dormice in specific areas next year so that they can find plenty of food and shelter and move safely along the planted forest edges to other habitats," explains Battermann. Press contact: Jennifer Calvi, Press Officer, German Wildlife Foundation, Phone +49 40 970 78 69 - 14, [email protected], www.DeutscheWildtierStiftung.de. Original content from: German Wildlife Foundation, transmitted by news aktuell. Original report: https://www.presseportal.de/pm/37587/6119235