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- Cold-blooded animals, or ectotherms, are species that regulate their body temperature according to the environment. This group includes reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates. They do not generate their own heat but instead rely on external sources like sunlight to warm up.
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Mar 5, 2024 · Mechanisms. Ectothermic animals regulate their body temperature through behavioral adaptations. For instance, a lizard basks in the sun to warm up or seeks shade to cool down. They also adjust their activities based on the temperature; they are more active when it’s warm and become sluggish in colder conditions. Evolutionary Appearance.
In addition to behavioral adaptations, physiological adaptations help ectotherms regulate temperature. Diving reptiles conserve heat by heat exchange mechanisms, whereby cold blood from the skin picks up heat from blood moving outward from the body core, re-using and thereby conserving some of the heat that otherwise would have been wasted.
ectotherm, any so-called cold-blooded animal—that is, any animal whose regulation of body temperature depends on external sources, such as sunlight or a heated rock surface. The ectotherms include the fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Oct 19, 2023 · An ectotherm, commonly referred to as a cold-blooded animal, relies on external heat sources to control its body temperature, which can fluctuate widely based on the animal's surroundings. This is different from endotherms, who regulate their internal temperature based on heat produced within the body.
- 4 min
- Overview
- Key points
- Introduction
- Mechanisms of thermoregulation
- Behavioral strategies
- Increasing heat production—thermogenesis
- Controlling the loss and gain of heat
- Circulatory mechanisms
- Vasoconstriction and vasodilation
- Countercurrent heat exchange
How behavior, anatomy, and physiology help animals regulate body temperature.
•Many animals regulate their body temperature through behavior, such as seeking sun or shade or huddling together for warmth.
•Endotherms can alter metabolic heat production to maintain body temperature using both shivering and non-shivering thermogenesis.
•Vasoconstriction—shrinking—and vasodilation—expansion—of blood vessels to the skin can alter an organism's exchange of heat with the environment.
•A countercurrent heat exchanger is an arrangement of blood vessels in which heat flows from warmer to cooler blood, usually reducing heat loss.
•Some animals use body insulation and evaporative mechanisms, such as sweating and panting, in body temperature regulation.
•Many animals regulate their body temperature through behavior, such as seeking sun or shade or huddling together for warmth.
•Endotherms can alter metabolic heat production to maintain body temperature using both shivering and non-shivering thermogenesis.
•Vasoconstriction—shrinking—and vasodilation—expansion—of blood vessels to the skin can alter an organism's exchange of heat with the environment.
•A countercurrent heat exchanger is an arrangement of blood vessels in which heat flows from warmer to cooler blood, usually reducing heat loss.
Why do lizards sunbathe? Why do jackrabbits have huge ears? Why do dogs pant when they're hot? Animals have quite a few different ways to regulate body temperature! These thermoregulatory strategies let them live in different environments, including some that are pretty extreme.
Polar bears and penguins, for instance, maintain a high body temperature in their chilly homes at the poles, while kangaroo rats, iguanas, and rattlesnakes thrive in Death Valley, where summertime highs are over 100∘F (38∘C )1 .
As a refresher, animals can be divided into endotherms and ectotherms based on their temperature regulation.
•Endotherms, such as birds and mammals, use metabolic heat to maintain a stable internal temperature, often one different from the environment.
•Ectotherms, like lizards and snakes, do not use metabolic heat to maintain their body temperature but take on the temperature of the environment.
Both endotherms and ectotherms have adaptations—features that arose by natural selection—that help them maintain a healthy body temperature. These adaptations can be behavioral, anatomical, or physiological. Some adaptations increase heat production in endotherms when it’s cold. Others, in both endotherms and ectotherms, increase or decrease exchange of heat with the environment.
We will look at three broad categories of thermoregulatory mechanisms in this article:
•Changing behavior
How do you regulate your body temperature using behavior? On a hot day, you might go for a swim, drink some cold water, or sit in the shade. On a cold day, you might put on a coat, sit in a cozy corner, or eat a bowl of hot soup.
Nonhuman animals have similar types of behaviors. For instance, elephants spray themselves with water to cool down on a hot day, and many animals seek shade when they get too warm. On the other hand, lizards often bask on a hot rock to warm up, and penguin chicks huddle in a group to retain heat.
Endotherms have various ways of increasing metabolic heat production, or thermogenesis, in response to cold environments.
One way to produce metabolic heat is through muscle contraction—for example, if you shiver uncontrollably when you're very cold. Both deliberate movements—such as rubbing your hands together or going for a brisk walk—and shivering increase muscle activity and thus boost heat production.
Nonshivering thermogenesis provides another mechanism for heat production. This mechanism depends on specialized fat tissue known as brown fat, or brown adipose tissue. Some mammals, especially hibernators and baby animals, have lots of brown fat. Brown fat contains many mitochondria with special proteins that let them release energy from fuel molecules directly as heat instead of channeling it into formation of the energy carrier ATP.2
To learn more about how energy is released as heat in brown fat cells, have a look at the section on uncoupling proteins in the oxidative phosphorylation article.
Animals also have body structures and physiological responses that control how much heat they exchange with the environment:
•Circulatory mechanisms, such as altering blood flow patterns
•Insulation, such as fur, fat, or feathers
•Evaporative mechanisms, such as panting and sweating
The body's surface is the main site for heat exchange with the environment. Controlling the flow of blood to the skin is an important way to control the rate of heat loss to—or gain from—the surroundings.
In endotherms, warm blood from the body’s core typically loses heat to the environment as it passes near the skin. Shrinking the diameter of blood vessels that supply the skin, a process known as vasoconstriction, reduces blood flow and helps retain heat.
On the other hand, when an endotherm needs to get rid of heat—say, after running hard to escape a predator—these blood vessels get wider, or dilate. This process is called vasodilation. Vasodilation increases blood flow to the skin and helps the animal lose some of its extra heat to the environment.
Furry mammals often have special networks of blood vessels for heat exchange located in areas of bare skin. For example, jackrabbits have large ears with an extensive network of blood vessels that allow rapid heat loss. This adaptation helps them live in hot desert environments.4
Some ectotherms also regulate blood flow to the skin as a way to conserve heat. For instance, iguanas reduce blood flow to the skin when they go swimming in cold water to help retain the heat they soaked up while on land.5,6
Many birds and mammals have countercurrent heat exchangers, circulatory adaptations that allow heat to be transferred from blood vessels containing warmer blood to those containing cooler blood. To see how this works, let's look at an example.
In the leg of a wading bird, the artery that runs down the leg carries warm blood from the body. The artery is positioned right alongside a vein that carries cold blood up from the foot. The descending, warm blood passes much of its heat to the ascending, cold blood by conduction. This means that less heat will be lost in the foot due to the reduced temperature difference between the cooled blood and the surroundings and that the blood moving back into the body's core will be relatively warm, keeping the core from getting cold.7
Jun 9, 2023 · Cold-blooded animals, however, have evolved interesting mechanisms to adapt - when exposed to the sun's rays, they'll align perpendicular to it to warm their bodies. Conversely, to cool down, they'll lie parallel to the sun rays or seek shade.
Jan 28, 2020 · Last Updated: January 28, 2020. Ectotherm Definition. An ectotherm is an organism which derives the heat it requires from the environment. This is in contrast to an endotherm, which creates the heat it needs from internal chemical reactions. A common misconception is that an ectotherm is “cold-blooded”.
