A CNRS team, working with the University of Strasbourg, ENS de Lyon and Australian institutions, has shown that Columbian ground squirrels can hibernate for months without losing their spatial memory. These animals, which live notably in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, spend eight to nine months a year in hibernation.
The scientists tested 18 wild squirrels in a maze that mimics a natural network of burrows. The animals that had learned the route before hibernating found the exit at the first attempt after waking up.
Compared with squirrels that had never seen the maze, they were 44 times faster, followed routes almost twice as direct and made about half as many mistakes. The study was published in the journal Biology Letters.
The work draws on long-term monitoring of the species’ ecology in the Canadian Rockies, which has been running for more than 34 years. The researchers now want to find out whether other memories, such as recognising members of the same species, also survive hibernation.
