The mortality rate significantly rose from zero on day 2 to 54% on day 75 of estivation (chi square test, Fig. 1A).
A significant loss in body mass during estivation was observed in all the studied days when compared with pre-estivation values (Student's paired t test, Fig. 1B). Mean body mass loss during estivation increased from 18% on day 2 to 51% on day 45 (Fig. 1B) and statistically significant differences occurred (day 2 vs. days 15, 30 and 45; day 15 vs. day 45; one-way ANOVA, Tukey test).
A 45days period of estivation was chosen for subsequent experiments. In these conditions, body mass recovery occurred rather rapidly after arousal (Fig. 1C), since significant differences between pre-estivation and post-arousal values still occurred only 20 min and 1 day after arousal (paired t test). Multigroup comparisons between postarousal values yielded some significant differences (20 min vs. all the other groups, and day 1 vs. day 4; one-way ANOVA, Tukey test). No deaths were recorded during the observations.