Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A dragonfly in its radical final moult, metamorphosing from an aquatic nymph to a winged adult.. In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at specific times of the year, or at specific points in ...
An ectotherm (from the Greek ἐκτός (ektós) "outside" and θερμός (thermós) "heat"), more commonly referred to as a "cold-blooded animal", [1] is an animal in which internal physiological sources of heat, such as blood, are of relatively small or of quite negligible importance in controlling body temperature. [2]
Some animals are regionally heterothermic and are able to allow their less insulated extremities to cool to temperatures much lower than their core temperature—nearly to 0 °C (32 °F). This minimizes heat loss through less insulated body parts, like the legs, feet (or hooves), and nose.
[13] [30] Some animals seal their burrows to keep them moist. [7] [31] Ectotherms also use burrows as a means to keep warm in the cold desert nights. [5] As ectotherms are usually small and unable to store their own body heat, they quickly take on the external temperature of the environment, which necessitates controlled microenvironments.
Allen's rule predicts that endothermic animals with the same body volume should have different surface areas that will either aid or impede their heat dissipation. Because animals living in cold climates need to conserve as much heat as possible, Allen's rule predicts that they should have evolved comparatively low surface area-to-volume ratios ...
They are designed to survive the cold, with a thick layer of hair covering their entire bodies down to their feet! Reindeer rarely live below the 50th parallel (most of the US and Canadian border ...
A boa constrictor in the U.K. gave birth to 14 babies — without a mate. The process is called parthenogenesis, from the Greek words for “virgin” and “birth.”
A new analysis of three-toed fossil footprints that date back more than 210 million years reveals that they were created by bipedal reptiles with feet like a bird’s.