Thermoregulation In Animals, A Fascinating Process
Animals, especially wild animals, do not have the opportunity to wear wool scarves to shelter from the winter cold, nor do they have a fan to cool off from the summer heat. But there’s no need to worry, because they have adaptive mechanisms that help them keep their body temperature right for the circumstances. We are talking about thermoregulation.
Humans also have these tools, but in a more rudimentary way. In this article we tell you all about thermoregulation in animals.
What’s it about?
Thermoregulation, as the name suggests, consists of regulating the body temperature. This concept refers to certain internal physiological mechanisms of living beings that allow them to regulate the temperature of the body.
Since temperature is one of the determining factors affecting the environment, thermoregulation has been fundamental during the evolution process of the species. An animal that is unable to regulate its body temperature could not, for example, go hunting in a very hot climate, nor could it survive a heavy snowfall.
Classification of animals based on thermoregulation
At school you will surely have studied biology, so the concept of “cold-blooded” and “warm-blooded” animals will certainly be familiar to you.
However, over the years this division has become obsolete, because it does not encompass all the possible scenarios that occur in nature. Therefore, today the correct classification proposed by biologists would be the following:
- Ectothermic animals : specimens whose temperature depends on that of the external environment. That is, if the sun heats up, the animal heats up. If there is no sun, his body remains cold. An example of an ectothermic animal are lizards.
- Endothermic animals : on the contrary, those whose temperature comes from inside the animal. This means that it does not matter if it is cold, the body temperature of the living thing will remain more or less warm. For example, dogs.
Thermoregulation in ectothermic animals
Since the heat source comes from outside, the body temperature of ectothermic animals depends on that of the surrounding environment. However, these living beings are capable of generating a certain amount of internal heat, but it is not enough to fully regulate their temperature.
Some of the mechanisms these animals use to regulate temperature are as follows:
- Sunbathing : there is no better external heat source than the sun, so a simple and effective way to increase body temperature when the animal feels cold is to expose yourself to the sun and wait for the body temperature to warm up. This is why it is so common to see lizards on rocks in the sun.
- Bathing : What better way to cool off in hot weather? Animals use water when their body temperature rises and they want to cool off.
Thermoregulation in endothermic animals
These living beings, including humans, raise the temperature through internal mechanisms and have the appropriate tools to control it. Let’s see some of them.
Sweating and panting
Although they may seem different, they follow a similar principle: evaporative cooling. Animals with sweat glands cool down by producing sweat, which when it evaporates generates a drop in temperature. Panting animals lower the temperature by evaporating the heat from the tongue.
The chills
This mechanism is nothing more than an involuntary contraction of the muscles, and when the muscles work, they produce an immediate increase in temperature. It’s a shame that the contraction you get when you shiver doesn’t help you lose weight!
Vasoconstriction and vasodilation
This system is really effective in regulating body temperature. When the external temperature drops and the animal needs to maintain the temperature, a vasoconstriction of the peripheral circulation occurs. This reduces blood circulation to the extremities.
This is the mechanism that causes necrosis in the extremities when it is very cold, for example, in climbers who get trapped. If the vasoconstriction persists for a long time, blood flow is interrupted and the limb receives no blood, resulting in necrosis.
The opposite system is vasodilation, which produces an increase in peripheral blood circulation. In this way, it is possible to dissipate the heat and lower the internal body temperature.
