Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Mesotherms have two basic characteristics: [1] Elevation of body temperature via metabolic production of heat. Weak or absent metabolic control of a particular body temperature. The first trait distinguishes mesotherms from ectotherms, the second from endotherms. For instance, endotherms, when cold, will generally resort to shivering or ...
In contrast to ectotherms, endotherms rely largely, even predominantly, on heat from internal metabolic processes, and mesotherms use an intermediate strategy. As there are more than two categories of temperature control utilized by animals, the terms warm-blooded and cold-blooded have been deprecated as scientific terms.
t. e. 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. Such internally generated heat is mainly an incidental ...
A eurytherm is an organism, often an endotherm, that can function at a wide range of ambient temperatures. [1] To be considered a eurytherm, all stages of an organism's life cycle must be considered, including juvenile and larval stages. [2] These wide ranges of tolerable temperatures are directly derived from the tolerance of a given ...
Physiology of dinosaurs. The physiology of dinosaurs has historically been a controversial subject, particularly their thermoregulation. Recently, many new lines of evidence have been brought to bear on dinosaur physiology generally, including not only metabolic systems and thermoregulation, but on respiratory and cardiovascular systems as well.
t. e. Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation.
Heterothermy or heterothermia (from Greek ἕτερος heteros "other" and θέρμη thermē "heat") is a physiological term for animals that vary between self-regulating their body temperature, and allowing the surrounding environment to affect it. In other words, they exhibit characteristics of both poikilothermy and homeothermy.
A few decades later, Atkinson (1994) performed a similar review of temperature effects on body size in ectotherms. His study, which included 92 species of ectotherms ranging from animals and plants to protists and bacteria, concluded that a reduction in temperature resulted in an increase in organism size in 83.5% of cases.