Frogs for example. they are like Aang from the Avatar movie lol, how can they survive being frozen and coming back to life? Aren’t they hungry or whatever?
In: Biology
https://mpt.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/lsps07.sci.life.evo.frozenfrogs/frozen-frogs/
Short answer – sugar and enzymes that act like sort of like antifreeze
Others have covered the freezing question so I’ll just tag on something about your question of hunger: a simplified explanation would be to think of it like hibernation. They hunker down, don’t move, and break down stored nutrients (for wood frogs this tends to be the leg muscles) until the freeze is over. They don’t really need to use their legs while hibernating, and their legs contain a lot of nutrients because hopping around is energetically expensive so they’re a good target to break down. If you want to look further into Wood Frogs and freeze tolerance I recommend to works of JP Costanzo.
They don’t really freeze solid. Not entirely anyway. They can’t survive indefinitely. However up to 65% of the water in their body can freeze during winter.
With some species of frogs:
1. They gather glycerol during the autumn/fall.
2. When a frog starts to freeze, its liver can turn the glycerol into glucose.
3. The glucose is then circulated to the frog’s organs so that ice crystals do not form in its tissues.
4. Now the most vital cells are protected from rupturing when they partially freeze.
It’s important to note that not all amphibians do this, many just get really slow but are still active
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