14 DAY TRIAL // Being crabbed won't help you.
Sociable behavior can bring you a lot of benefits.
Researchers at University of Ontario - comparing behavior of the stripped skunks that have to get through long, cold winters in northern climates - found that while most male skunks den underground alone, a group of female skunks will often gather together with one male in communal dens.
Individuals that den alone reach torpor, the state during which an animal decreases its metabolism and temperature to save energy and conserve water, almost ten times every day. But males that passed winter with females do not enter torpor at all, maybe because they have to be able to defend the den. "Contrary to our predictions, grouped skunks did not regularly use torpor in addition to huddling to maximize energy saving," write the authors. "Our results revealed a different strategy for animals in groups: When skunks were in groups they apparently benefit from huddling to the point of reducing the need to undergo torpor."
Huddling decreases the exposed surface area and water loss to the environment. Skunks from communal dens remain with a higher body fat percentage (25.5 %, compared with only 9.3 % for solitary skunks). Males from communal dens are also advantaged reproductively, as low body temperature can impede sperm production. In this case, all skunks should winter in communal dens.
But there is a higher risk of disease or parasite transmission in groups and predator detection and depletion of resources are a risk for communal dens. "The fitness benefits of spring body fat are probably higher in females than males because of higher reproductive cost incurred by females for pregnancy, parturition, and lactation," explain the authors. "Thus, the benefits of communal denning in females outweigh the cost, whereas for males the cost of communal denning must outweigh the benefits of higher body fat in the spring."
Torpor is a common state during winter for bears, skunks and badgers in the northern areas. Striped skunks reach the lowest torpid body temperature of any carnivore, 26 degrees Celsius.