Animal in a coma?

September 28, 2006 8:28 AM

Can an animal fall into a coma?

This may be a dumb question and of course a definition of what a comatose state is key to answering this but I am curious. Are humans the only creatures that fall into comas? If this does occur are animals just put down? Again, if this does occur is there documentation of an animal recovering from a comatose state? Is hibernation a kind of coma? Ahh, questions, questions...

posted by ob to pets & animals (17 comments total)

I think there is a certain kind of frog that actually can freeze in the winter. it has no heartbeat, no bloodpressure, no vital signs whatsoever and is by all means dead until it reawakes come spring.

I wished I'd remember the exact name but I only watch the discovery channel when drunk.
posted by krautland at 8:59 AM on September 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

one time at my old parents' house my sister saw a bird fly into the window ... she put the bird up on the bird feeder where it shuddered and blinked its eyes for a few minutes and seemed utterly unaware that there were several humans within 2 feet of it, looking at it, and unable to do anything about it if it was aware

suddenly the bird's head kind of snapped, its eyes were open, it saw us and immediately flew off

that probably doesn't qualify as a comatose state, but it's interesting ...
posted by pyramid termite at 9:02 AM on September 28, 2006

In the wild? Not for long.

Hibernation is a totally different physiological process that, as krautland notes, slows down all metabolic processes and drops the body temperature. As I understand it, a coma mostly involves the shutting down of concious brain function. All the automatic body processes work fine (relatively), but it's the part of you brain that's aware that stops working.

First result for googling "animal coma". Answer: absolutely. It's just a matter of how much money you want to pay to tube-feed your dog.
posted by one_bean at 9:05 AM on September 28, 2006

...also referenced in the Smith's b-side "Goldfish in a Coma."
posted by one_bean at 9:07 AM on September 28, 2006

krautland - Lots of frogs and toads do this. There's an article in an old edition of Scientific American that talks about this. Unfortunately, I can't find the actual article online.

Storey KB & Storey JM (1990) Frozen and alive. Scientific American
263:92-97
posted by bshort at 9:16 AM on September 28, 2006

Physically it's possible, but would usually result in death due to starvation, or being eaten, hypothermia, etc.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:25 AM on September 28, 2006

Thanks for the answers folks. I guessed that it was possible, but I really had no idea. There's no real reason for this question apart from idle curiousity, but there we go...
posted by ob at 9:42 AM on September 28, 2006

I kept a comatose rabbit as a pet for about three weeks.

My cat was chasing it around the yard when it backed up against a tree and just fell over. We assume it was in shock, or had had a stoke, from fear and exhaustion.

It acted exactly like a comatose person. Slow but even pulse, occasional involuntary muscle spasms. It drooled. Sometimes it would blink.

I force-fed it alfalfa slurry from an eyedropper for three weeks, until it eventually died (probably from inadequate nutrition - I tried, but I was only ten).
posted by miagaille at 10:21 AM on September 28, 2006

Frog-freezing on YouTube, just for the record:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v2-3Howprc
posted by martinrebas at 11:07 AM on September 28, 2006

krutland, the remarkable frog video has been tubified.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v2-3Howprc
posted by |n$eCur3 at 11:49 AM on September 28, 2006

Doh. i guess i should have refreshed before answering this one.
posted by |n$eCur3 at 11:50 AM on September 28, 2006

I thought I recalled the frog freezing from an episode of Nova. It was on recently.
posted by tastybrains at 1:15 PM on September 28, 2006

To toss some chaff in with the grain... Fainting goats!

I've seen them at the Old Faithful Geyser in Calistoga, CA. I figured that all those tourists trying over the years would have hardened them to it and I would have to do something truly horrendous to scare them enough. Not my style...
posted by a_green_man at 1:23 PM on September 28, 2006

Well the fainting goats were quite odd, but the frog thing is just biazarre and truly amazing in equal measure!
posted by ob at 4:53 PM on September 28, 2006

The New Zealand weta also lets itself freeze for winter, then just walks out in spring.

Scary looking thing
posted by lundman at 7:38 PM on September 28, 2006

This is discussed in a James Herriot book, but I just can't remember which. Herriot means to anesthetize a severely injured sheep, but he accidentally doesn't inject enough anesthetic. When Herriot returns, the sheep that had been in an induced coma for a week or two is well on the way to recovery. I think Herriot then discusses the use of induced comas for a paragraph or two.

The medicine may not be up to date, but it's an interesting story and the kind of thing you're looking for. I'm almost positive the animal was a sheep that was caught in a barbed-wire fence, but Googling isn't helping me find the story.
posted by booksandlibretti at 7:43 PM on September 28, 2006

Of course the minute after I post that, MeFi goes unresponsive for a few hours so I can't correct my mistake. He was using the anesthetic to try to put the sheep down, but didn't inject enough. He wasn't just trying to anesthetize it.
posted by booksandlibretti at 10:01 PM on September 28, 2006