Roberta Lowe, age 12, of Fond Dulac, Wis., for her question:

Do any animals hibernate during the summer?

Many animals hibernate to escape the cold and food shortages of winter. Quite a few animals also hide out to escape the heat or long droughts of summer. This trick, however, is called estivation rather than hibernation. Most of the animals that estivate, or aestivate, live in deserts.

Here winter is the comfortable time of warm days and plentiful food. In the southwestern deserts, the winter climate is rather like the spring and fall weather of the northern states. Plants sprout and bloom after the rains and insects are very abundant. All this ends during the long summer droughts. During July and August, certain gophers and ground squirrels of the deserts often retire to their burrows and go into a deep sleep, like their northern cousins do during the winter.