What is the difference between an endothermic animal and an ectothermic animal?

Answer 1

ENDOTHERMIC ANIMALS:-

Definition:-Endothermic animals are basically warm blooded animals.They CAN maintain their body temperature with that of the environment.

Characteristics:-

1. They can generate heat in their bodies themselves.
2. They maintain their body temperature by regulating their metabolic rates, such as increasing their metabolic rate when the atmospheric temperature begins to decrease.

Examples:- Examples of endothermic animals are:-

1. Birds
2. Mammals

ECTOTHERMIC/EXOTHERMIC ANIMALS:-

Definition:-Exothermic animals are basically cold-blooded animals. They CANNOT maintain their body temperature with that of the environment.

Characteristics:-

1. They cannot generate their own body heat.

Examples:-

1. Fish
2. Reptiles
3. Amphibians

Ways of adjusting internal temperatures:-

Many cold-blooded animals use behavioral means to adjust their internal temperatures:

• Lizards and snakes bask in the sun in the early morning and late evening, and seek shelter around noon.
• Many species of bees and moths flap their wings vigorously to raise the temperature of their flight muscles before taking off.
• Bees in large hives will cool the hive in hot periods by going to its entrances and using their wings as fans to draw cooling air through the hive. They will warm the hive in cool periods by gathering in the middle and shivering to produce heat.
• Termite mounds are usually oriented in a north-south direction so that they absorb as much heat as possible around dawn and dusk and minimize heat absorption around noon.

Some other cold-blooded creatures use internal mechanisms to maintain body temperatures significantly above the ambient level:

• Fish have long been thought to be cold blooded. Tuna and swordfish dive deep into the ocean where the water is very cold. Swordfish are able to raise the temperature of their brains and eyes, which allows faster eye movements when hunting. Tuna are able to warm their entire bodies through a heat exchange mechanism called the rete mirabile, which helps keep heat inside the body, and minimises the loss of heat through the gills. They also have their swimming muscles near the center of their bodies instead of near the surface, which minimises heat loss.
• "Warm-blooded" sharks, such as mako and white sharks, minimize heat loss through their gills by passing their blood through rete mirabile heat exchangers before it enters into the gills and after it exits from them: the Veins are right next to arteries and thus extract heat from the arteries and carry it back into the body. The most "warmblooded" shark is the salmon shark that can hunt as far north as Alaska.
• Large sea turtles exhibit inertial homeothermy, or gigantothermy. Their low ratio of surface area to volume minimises heat loss.

  Many cold-blooded animals use behavioral means to adjust their internal temperatures:

• Lizards and snakes bask in the sun in the early morning and late evening, and seek shelter around noon.
• Many species of bees and moths flap their wings vigorously to raise the temperature of their flight muscles before taking off.
• Bees in large hives will cool the hive in hot periods by going to its entrances and using their wings as fans to draw cooling air through the hive. They will warm the hive in cool periods by gathering in the middle and shivering to produce heat.
• Termite mounds are usually oriented in a north-south direction so that they absorb as much heat as possible around dawn and dusk and minimise heat absorption around noon.