Cicadas draw attention to other creatures that go dormant during their life cycle

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Two broods of cicadas are emerging in big numbers in the United States after a long nap. Feels like a special occasion, although it turns out that many creatures do something like this, go dormant as part of their normal life cycle.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Yes. As one video from Nat Geo explains, when drought hits sub-Saharan Africa, the freshwater lungfish burrows into the mud.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Where it coats itself in mucus, which dries to a leathery body bag, protecting it from total dehydration.

INSKEEP: Eugh (ph).

MARTIN: I know, right? The European dormouse, made famous - OK, sort of famous - by "Alice In Wonderland," can sleep up to 11 months of the year, living on its own accumulated body fat.

INSKEEP: Also, tiny freshwater crustaceans called fairy shrimp lay eggs that can remain on dry ground for years, until enough rain creates a pond for them to hatch.

MARTIN: Clay Bolt manages pollinator conservation for the World Wildlife Fund. He calls dormancy a survival mechanism for extreme conditions.

CLAY BOLT: This is just a strategy that many species have evolved over the years to allow themselves to survive during the most difficult parts of the year.

INSKEEP: Bolt says royal insects - those are leafcutter ant queens, queen termites, bumblebee queens - also spend time underground in suspended animation as part of their natural life cycles. The world's smallest creatures, Bolt says, have a lot to teach us.

BOLT: These animals have been on Earth a lot longer than we have, and they have figured out some of the ways to navigate these challenges that we are just now figuring out.

MARTIN: Bolt wants us to remember that though they might give us the creeps, these underground bugs are a good thing.

BOLT: There is life in the soil. They are breaking down organic materials. They're doing a lot of good work that helps the Earth to function.

INSKEEP: Melissa Hawkins is curator of terrestrial mammals at the National Museum of Natural History here in Washington, D.C. She confesses to a bias for squirrels. Who doesn't have a bias for squirrels? They often...

MARTIN: I do not.

INSKEEP: (Laughter).

MARTIN: I'll explain.

INSKEEP: All right. They'll often hibernate and have invaded nearly every part of the world.

MELISSA HAWKINS: And actually live in really the most extreme terrestrial habitats that the planet has to offer.

INSKEEP: Really? The little squirrels live in extreme habitats.

MARTIN: Yes, and they have an extreme fondness for the peaches off my tree, but I digress.

INSKEEP: (Laughter).

HAWKINS: Arctic ground squirrels live in subzero climates. OK, carrying on...

INSKEEP: Right.

MARTIN: ...Hawkins says research into dormant states like this can help us.

HAWKINS: It shows a lot of promise in these areas for stroke and brain injuries, which is really cool to think about - how, like, a little sleeping squirrel getting a CAT scan could help humans sometime down the road.

MARTIN: There's also research into wood frogs, which survive the winter frozen solid. That could help us learn more about human tissue damage from the cold.

INSKEEP: Wow. It's like that movie "Frozen." Who knew?

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