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Ectotherms
An ectotherm (from the Greek () "outside" and () "heat") is an organism in which internal physiological sources of heat are of relatively small or of quite negligible importance in controlling body temperature.Davenport, John. Animal Life at Low Temperature. Publisher: Springer 1991. Such organisms (for example frogs) rely on environmental heat sources, which permit them to operate at very economical metabolic rates. Some of these animals live in environments where temperatures are practically constant, as is typical of regions of the abyssal ocean and hence can be regarded as homeothermic ectotherms. In contrast, in places where temperature varies so widely as to limit the physiological activities of other kinds of ectotherms, many species habitually seek out external sources of heat or shelter from heat; for example, many reptiles regulate their body temperature by basking in the sun, or seeking shade when necessary in addition to a whole host of other behavioral thermo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Body Temperature
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. The internal thermoregulation process is one aspect of homeostasis: a state of dynamic stability in an organism's internal conditions, maintained far from thermal equilibrium with its environment (the study of such processes in zoology has been called physiological ecology). If the body is unable to maintain a normal temperature and it increases significantly above normal, a condition known as hyperthermia occurs. Humans may also experience lethal hyperthermia when the wet bulb temperature is sustained above for six hours. The opposite condition, when body temperature decreases below normal levels, is known as hypothermia. It results when the homeostatic c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endotherms
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 product of the animal's routine metabolism, but under conditions of excessive cold or low activity an endotherm might apply special mechanisms adapted specifically to heat production. Examples include special-function muscular exertion such as shivering, and uncoupled oxidative metabolism, such as within brown adipose tissue. Only birds and mammals are extant universally endothermic groups of animals. However, Argentine black and white tegu, leatherback sea turtles, lamnid sharks, tuna and billfishes, cicadas, and winter moths are also endothermic. Unlike mammals and birds, some reptiles, particularly some species of python and tegu, poss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endothermy
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 product of the animal's routine metabolism, but under conditions of excessive cold or low activity an endotherm might apply special mechanisms adapted specifically to heat production. Examples include special-function muscular exertion such as shivering, and uncoupled oxidative metabolism, such as within brown adipose tissue. Only birds and mammals are extant universally endothermic groups of animals. However, Argentine black and white tegu, leatherback sea turtles, lamnid sharks, tuna and billfishes, cicadas, and winter moths are also endothermic. Unlike mammals and birds, some reptiles, particularly some species of python and tegu, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torpor
Torpor is a state of decreased physiological activity in an animal, usually marked by a reduced body temperature and metabolic rate. Torpor enables animals to survive periods of reduced food availability. The term "torpor" can refer to the time a hibernator spends at low body temperature, lasting days to weeks, or it can refer to a period of low body temperature and metabolism lasting less than 24 hours, as in "daily torpor". Animals that undergo daily torpor include birds (even tiny hummingbirds, notably Cypselomorphae) and some mammals, including many marsupial species, rodent species (such as mice), and bats. During the active part of their day, such animals maintain normal body temperature and activity levels, but their metabolic rate and body temperature drop during a portion of the day (usually night) to conserve energy. Some animals seasonally go into long periods of inactivity, with reduced body temperature and metabolism, made up of multiple bouts of torpor. This is kno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insect Thermoregulation
Insect thermoregulation is the process whereby insects maintain body temperatures within certain boundaries. Insects have traditionally been considered as ''poikilotherms'' (animals in which body temperature is variable and dependent on ambient temperature) as opposed to being ''homeothermic'' (animals that maintain a stable internal body temperature regardless of external influences). However, the term ''temperature regulation'', or ''thermoregulation'', is currently used to describe the ability of insects and other animals to maintain a stable temperature (either above or below ambient temperature), at least in a portion of their bodies by physiological or behavioral means. While many insects are ''ectotherms'' (animals in which their heat source is primarily from the environment), others are ''endotherms'' (animals that can produce heat internally by biochemical processes). These endothermic insects are better described as '' regional heterotherms'' because they are not uniforml ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poikilotherm
A poikilotherm () is an animal whose internal temperature varies considerably. Poikilotherms have to survive and adapt to environmental stress. One of the most important stressors is temperature change, which can lead to alterations in membrane lipid order and can cause protein unfolding and denaturation at elevated temperatures. It is the opposite of a homeotherm, an animal which maintains thermal homeostasis. While the term in principle can apply to all organisms, it is generally only applied to animals, and mostly to vertebrates. Usually the fluctuations are consequence of variation in the ambient environmental temperature. Many terrestrial ectotherms are poikilothermic. However some ectotherms remain in temperature-constant environments to the point that they are actually able to maintain a constant internal temperature (i.e. are homeothermic). It is this distinction that often makes the term "poikilotherm" more useful than the vernacular "cold-blooded", which is sometimes us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesotherm
A mesotherm (from Greek μέσος ''mesos'' "intermediate" and ''thermē'' "heat") is a type of animal with a thermoregulatory strategy intermediate to cold-blooded ectotherms and warm-blooded endotherms. Definition Mesotherms have two basic characteristics: # 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 metabolizing brown fat to maintain a constant body temperature, leading to higher metabolic rates. A mesotherm, however, will experience lower body temperatures and lower metabolic rates as ambient temperature drops. In addition, mesotherm body temperatures tend to rise as body size increases (a phenomenon known as gigantothermy), unlike endotherms. This reflects the lower surface area to volume ratio in large animals, which reduces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forest Tent Caterpillar Moth
The forest tent caterpillar moth (''Malacosoma disstria'') is a moth found throughout North America, especially in the eastern regions. Unlike related tent caterpillar species, the larvae of forest tent caterpillars do not make tents, but rather, weave a silky sheet where they lie together during molting. They also lay down strands of silk as they move over branches and travel as groups along these pheromone-containing silk trails. The caterpillars are social, traveling together to feed and massing as a group at rest. Group behavior diminishes as the caterpillars increase in size, so that by the fifth instar (molt) the caterpillars are feeding and resting independently.Forest tent caterpillars, University of Florida James R. Meeker, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Servi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wood Frog
''Lithobates sylvaticus'' or ''Rana sylvatica'', commonly known as the wood frog, is a frog species that has a broad distribution over North America, extending from the boreal forest of the north to the southern Appalachians, with several notable disjunct populations including lowland eastern North Carolina. The wood frog has garnered attention from biologists because of its freeze tolerance, relatively great degree of terrestrialism (for a ranid), interesting habitat associations (peat bogs, vernal pools, uplands), and relatively long-range movements. The ecology and conservation of the wood frog has attracted research attention in recent years because they are often considered "obligate" breeders in ephemeral wetlands (sometimes called "vernal pools"), which are themselves more imperiled than the species that breed in them. The wood frog has been proposed to be the official state amphibian of New York. Description Wood frogs range from in length. Females are larger than ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basking Turtles )
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Basking may refer to: *Basking in reflected glory, associating oneself with successful other such that their success becomes one's own *Basking Ridge, New Jersey, unincorporated area in Bernards Township in the Somerset Hills region of Somerset County, New Jersey *Basking Ridge (NJT station), New Jersey Transit station in Bernards Township, New Jersey *Basking shark, ''Cetorhinus maximus'', is the second largest living fish, after the whale shark *Sunning (behaviour) or Basking behaviour used to raise body temperature, exhibited by some animals (see ectotherm An ectotherm (from the Greek () "outside" and () "heat") is an organism in which internal physiological sources of heat are of relatively small or of quite negligible importance in controlling body temperature.Davenport, John. Animal Life a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heat Exchanger
A heat exchanger is a system used to transfer heat between a source and a working fluid. Heat exchangers are used in both cooling and heating processes. The fluids may be separated by a solid wall to prevent mixing or they may be in direct contact. They are widely used in space heating, refrigeration, air conditioning, power stations, chemical plants, petrochemical plants, petroleum refineries, natural-gas processing, and sewage treatment. The classic example of a heat exchanger is found in an internal combustion engine in which a circulating fluid known as engine coolant flows through radiator coils and air flows past the coils, which cools the coolant and heats the incoming air. Another example is the heat sink, which is a passive heat exchanger that transfers the heat generated by an electronic or a mechanical device to a fluid medium, often air or a liquid coolant. Flow arrangement Image:Heat_exc_1-1.svg, Fig. 1: Shell and tube heat exchanger, single pass (1–1 parallel f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BLACK SNAKE
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as good and evil, the Dark Ages versus Age of Enlightenment, and night versus day. Since the Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason it is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates. Black was one of the first colors used by artists in Neolithic cave paintings. It was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as the color of the underworld. In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches, and magic. In the 14th century, it was worn by royalty, clergy, judges, and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by English romantic poets, businessme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
