Short answers, pulled from the story.
The historical practice of Lotska involved Russian peasants in the Pskov Government spending six months sleeping around a stove during the winter of 1900. They woke only once a day to consume bread and water, creating a human ritual that mirrors the deep dormancy of animals.
The discovery of hibernation in the fat-tailed dwarf lemur of Madagascar occurred when researchers found the animal hibernates in tree holes for seven months of the year. This finding proved that hibernation is not exclusively an adaptation to low ambient temperatures, as Malagasy winter temperatures sometimes rise to over 30 degrees Celsius.
Research in 2011 on captive black bears and again in 2016 on brown bears refuted the theory that their deep sleep was not comparable to true hibernation. These studies showed that hibernating bears are able to recycle their proteins and urine, allowing them to stop urinating for months and avoid muscle atrophy.
Research by David Sims in 2003 dispelled the hypothesis that basking sharks settled to the floor of the North Sea and became dormant. The study showed that the sharks traveled long distances throughout the seasons, tracking the areas with the highest quantity of plankton.
The earliest suggested instance of hibernation is in Thrinaxodon, an ancestor of mammals that lived roughly 252 million years ago. This species represents the transition from ectothermy to endothermy where ancestors of birds and mammals likely experienced an early form of torpor or hibernation.