The study of unusual or little-known animals can pay enormous dividends by providing new insights into fundamental biological processes. One has to consider only the implications of the studies on Aplysia or Caenorhabditis as illustrations, to say nothing of the many examples from the work of Gunter Tembrock, in whose honor this lecture is offered. Recent studies of the hibernation of a small primate from Madagascar, the fat-tailed dwarf lemur, which may remain in a condition of torpor for weeks at a time, promise a range of similar insights. © 2012 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.