Waiting For the Ice to Thaw
Getting iced means something very different to alligators around the world than it does to college-aged humans in the western world. The term “icing” describes how these cold-blooded animals adapt to and endure the bitterly cold winter months.
While it is known as hibernation in mammals, brumation is the term used by reptiles for the process of lowering an animal’s metabolic rate in order to survive the coldest parts of the year. The alligators don’t feel any pain because their snouts are made entirely of cartilage, and they are fine as long as the water in which they are submerged is still liquid.