Question

Maybe "sleep mode"?

http://www.answers.com/hibernate

http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312800/hibernate.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation

=)

This was an extra credit Q on a 6th grade science test..
"What do we call the period of hibernation by animals?"

Since winter is not the correct answer, I'm stumped as to what the correct answer would be!
Thanks for your help!

Thank you for your reply! I have twins- my son answered this with 'winter' and my girl answered with 'a time for deep sleeping' but both got it marked wrong. Since they are not allowed to bring home their science books, I couldn't look in the text for the answer. When I looked up hibernation on dictionary.--- it stated the word was of Latin origin for 'to winter,relating to winter'- it listed synonyms torpor and dormant,so maybe one of them is the answer the teachers were looking for?

Oops! I meant the word torpid, not torpor.