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Animals in the Cold

Have you heard? It's cold out there, typical for Pennsylvania in January, but animals know just what to do to make it through our winters. According to the Bradford County Conservation District, they have a lot of creative ways to survive.

The white-tailed deer, for example, has a coat that changes from a red-brown to a gray-brown in winter months, a thicker coat that locks in the animals' heat and allows snow not to melt into it.

Several species of frogs in the Commonwealth are freeze-tolerant. They can remain under leaves or in logs in the winter. They'll be among the first to look for vernal pools and mates in the spring. Some species lean on their friends to get them through. Snakes find one another and den together in rocks or other crevices. Honeybees, too. They form a cluster around their queen and can insulate their colony as needed as temperatures drop

Juile Sidoni currently serves as WVIA's Director of Journalism. Julie began her award-winning journalism career in public radio, at the NPR affiliate WDUQ-FM in Pittsburgh.