Joyce Grimwood, age 15, of Lyndon,, Ky., for her question:
Do reptiles migrate?
When animals migrate, they travel hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles. The journey is always a long one. Seals swim thousands of miles between the shores of California and their breeding grounds on the Aleutian Isles. Robins fly hundreds of miles between. the northern states and the Southland. Herds of caribou walk hundreds of miles between their summer and winter oreeding grounds. The Arctic tern migrates between the Arctic and the Antarctic Circles.
All these migratory animals have the means to travel ‑. flippers for swimming, wings for flying or sturdy legs for long hiking. As a class, the reptiles are not equipped to travel long journeys. The snake wriggles along very gracefully, but he cannot travel far or very fast. The lizard has legs, but they are short and stubby. What's more, they grow out from the sides of his body. A lizard can walk and maybe sprint a short distance. But his little legs will not allow him to stand upright, let alone hike a long distance.
The crocodile probably could migrate a long distance by water. For he is an excellent swimmer. However, he chooses to live in a warm climate where food is always plentiful and the temperature always just right, Ha has no need to migrate.
The tortoise is famous as a slow‑poke. If he started to migrate in the fall he might get just out of town by spring ‑ which is no way to escape the winter. The turtle, like the crocodile, could migrate by water. In fact, of the reptile family, certain turtles are the only ones that do migrate. The small turtles do not migrate. But the females of curtain huge sea‑going turtles migrate to warm, sandy bunches where they lay their eggs. Then they return to the deep ocean, following the warm currents with the changing seasons.
Reptiles, of course, are cold blooded animals. They must get their warmth from their warmth from their surroundings, for they nave no body heat of their own. The warmer they get, the morn active they become. When chilly they are slow and pokey. So the reptiles of the temperate regions must do something to escape the winter.
They hibernate, each in his own way. The snake crawls into a rocky crevice or a hole maybe 15 feet underground. Often he coils into a tangled ball with a dozen or more of his relatives. The little lizard crawls under a tree root, under some old leaves or into any cranny big enough to shelter him. The painted turtle digs himself a hole in a muddy river bank, The box turtle buries himself in soft soil. The mud turtle hides in the mud at the bottom of a quiet pond.
When set, these little animals all sink into a deep coma‑like sleep. The heart beat becomes slow and breathing may stop altogether. They can remain this way for months at a time. In their dark, quiet resting places there is neither light nor noise to disturb them. They will wake up only when warm spring weather comes to thaw out the ground..