We explain what warm-blooded animals are, their characteristics and various examples. Also, what are cold-blooded animals.
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Warm-blooded animals have physiological strategies to conserve heat.
What are warm-blooded animals?
Warm-blooded animals are those that are capable of maintaining their body temperature relatively constant, regardless of the environmental conditions in which they find themselves. They are also known as homeotherms because they maintain internal homeostasis , that is, the internal thermal balance . In this they differ from cold-blooded animals , which depend on the environment to warm or cool.
This difference is known as thermoregulation . Thus, it is common for cold-blooded animals to expose themselves to the sun to warm up, for example, while warm-blooded animals have their own physiological and bodily strategies to conserve heat, such as shivering, sweating, expanding or contracting their arms. blood vessels, panting, among others. Warm-blooded animals include mammals and birds, including humans .
However, when we talk about warm-blooded animals, we are actually referring to three different aspects of thermoregulation that most of these animals exhibit:
- endothermy_ It consists of the ability to maintain internal temperature in a stable range, thanks to dynamics such as panting, vasodilation, shivering or burning fat.
- Homeothermy. It consists of the consumption of chemical energy from food, to maintain body temperature well above the temperature of the environment.
- Tachymetabolism. It consists of the ability to maintain the metabolism acting at high levels (that is, consuming a lot of energy and producing a lot of heat ) despite the fact that the animal is in a state of rest. In other words, the metabolism is always on.
It is important to understand that while animals have traditionally been classified as cold-blooded and warm-blooded, contemporary research has revealed that this is not a simple and complete division. In reality, these categories operate as extremes of a spectrum in terms of thermoregulation.
In other words, animals may have more or less strategies to adapt to changes in environmental temperature: in some cases they are bodily strategies and in others they are environmental strategies, and in most cases a combination of both.
See also: Endothermic reactions
Characteristics of warm-blooded animals
In general, warm-blooded animals are characterized by the following:
- They have fast, always-on metabolismsthat consume a lot of energy and generate a lot of heat. For this reason, the body temperature of these animals normally exceeds that of the environment.
- Their body temperature is independent of the environment, that is, they can be kept warm in winter, or in the absence of sunlight, or cool under the summer sun. For this they have mechanisms of their own body (which does not mean that they do not also try to provide relief by varying the environmental conditions).
- Their higher degree of metabolic activity allows them to have more complex and energy-intensive internal organs(such as brains) and therefore require a larger and more continuous food supply compared to cold-blooded animals.
- They have a constant body temperature, in a range close to 37 °C (for mammals) and 40 °C (for birds). This means that they do not become lethargic in the cold, like cold-blooded animals, and that their physiological processes occur optimally (breathing, digesting, etc.).
Examples of warm-blooded animals
Camels have a higher limit of body heat tolerance than other mammals.
Some examples of warm-blooded animals are:
- Dogs and other canids such as hyenas or jackals. These quadruped animals, both in their domestic and wild species , are warm-blooded creatures that in situations of high body heat resort to a characteristic panting, with the tongue out, to release water vapor and cool down.
- The humans. Like the body of other mammals, the human body has different tools to deal with variations in body temperature. For example, in situations of increased environmental temperature, the body produces sweating to cool the skin by evaporation and blood vessels dilate to release heat; while in cold weather, blood vessels shrink to preserve body heat, and the body shivering to produce muscle heat and burns fat as an alternate source of chemical energy.
- Camels and dromedaries. These camelids are typical of arid and hot climates, such as hot tropical deserts, and have a higher limit of tolerance to body heat than other mammals, to delay sweating and not lose vital fluids. These dynamics allow them to withstand very extreme conditions, in addition, in the hump they have large reserves of fat that they can resort to in cold conditions.
- Cats and other felines such as the lion, the puma or the lynx. In addition to the thermoregulation traits that these animals share with other mammals, cats have the ability to thicken or thin their fur depending on environmental conditions. Thus, in cold times, they gain hair and facilitate the retention of body heat; while in times of heat, they lose hair to cool the surface of the body.
- The whales. These large marine mammals can submerge in the deep waters of the ocean for long periods of time, thanks to their large lung capacity and also to their fat reserves that allow them to sustain the energy consumption of their metabolism (and therefore heat). body) despite being far from the sun in cold and dark waters.
Other examples of warm-blooded animals are:
- Chickens and poultry.
- Apes, macaques and monkeys.
- Birds of preyand scavengers, such as the condor, the vulture, the hawk, among others.
- Pigs, cows, sheep and goats.
- Antelope, elk, deer and deer.
- Rhinos , elephants ,and hippos .
- Rheas, ostriches and large flightless birds.
- Rats, hamsters and rodents of all kinds.
- Owls and other nocturnal birds.
- Other aquatic mammals such as the seal, the sea lion, the dolphin.
cold blooded animals
Cold-blooded animals are those that do not have bodily and metabolic tools to maintain their body temperature , and therefore must go to the environment to do so: exposing themselves to the sun when its temperature drops and submerging in water when its temperature rises. .
This means that their body temperature is just above the environment, and that they have slower and simpler metabolisms , which plunge them into torpor during the cold. Cold-blooded animals include reptiles , amphibians , most fish, arthropods , and invertebrate animals .
