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An endotherm (from Greek ἔνδον endon "within" and θέρμη thermē "heat") is an organism that maintains its body at a metabolically favorable temperature, largely by the use of heat released by its internal bodily functions instead of relying almost purely on ambient heat.
Humans inhabit hot climates, both dry and humid, and have done so for millions of years. Selective use of clothing and technological inventions such as air conditioning allows humans to live in hot climates. One example is the Chaamba, who live in the Sahara Desert. They wear clothing that traps air in between skin and the clothes, preventing ...
As in other mammals, human thermoregulation is an important aspect of homeostasis. In thermoregulation, body heat is generated mostly in the deep organs, especially the liver, brain, and heart, and in contraction of skeletal muscles. [1] Humans have been able to adapt to a great diversity of climates, including hot humid and hot arid.
Similarly, humans rely upon clothing, housing, air conditioning, and drinking to achieve the same goals, although humans are not considered indicative of endotherms on the whole. [23] The green crab is an exceedingly common species of shore crab.
Endotherms create most of their heat via metabolic processes and are colloquially referred to as warm-blooded. When the surrounding temperatures are cold, endotherms increase metabolic heat production to keep their body temperature constant, thus making the internal body temperature of an endotherm more or less independent of the temperature of ...
A significant proportion of creatures commonly referred to as "warm-blooded," like birds and mammals, exhibit all three of these categories (i.e., they are endothermic, homeothermic, and tachymetabolic). However, over the past three decades, investigations in the field of animal thermophysiology have unveiled numerous species within these two ...
The human outer or peripheral shell (skin, subcutaneous fat etc.) acts as an adjustable insulator/radiator with the main mechanism of adjustment being blood flow to this compartment. If the surroundings are warm then heat loss is less, so the body directs more blood to the periphery to maintain the gradient for energy flow.
During these multi-day torpor bouts, body temperature drops to ~1 °C above ambient temperature and metabolism may drop to about 1% of the normal endothermic metabolic rate. Even in these deep hibernators, the long periods of torpor is interrupted by bouts of endothermic metabolism, called arousals (typically lasting between 4–20 hours).