Let us know about the terms cold-blooded and warm-blooded before knowing the difference between these two categories. Your body, like a living furnace, attempts to maintain a steady internal temperature regardless of the outside temperature. It produces heat by consuming the food you consume.
Cold-blooded Animals
Animals that cannot regulate their internal body temperature according to that of the changing environment. Normally, they find it difficult to survive the extreme temperature conditions. Examples include reptiles and fish. This applies to all creatures except the mammals and birds category, including worms, fish, amphibians, and reptiles. The term “cold-blooded” refers to an animal’s body temperature is nearly the same as that of its surroundings. A fish swimming in water at a temperature of 40°F will have a body temperature that is very close to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. In 60° F water, the identical fish will have a body temperature of around 60° F.
Cold-blooded creatures can’t generate their own heat, therefore they have to maintain their body temperature by moving about. Cold-blooded creatures become less active, even lethargic, as the temperature drops. An insect’s wing muscles can’t move fast enough to allow it to fly if it gets too chilly. Some moths vibrate their wing muscles, much like you do when you shiver, and the contracting muscles generate enough heat for takeoff. A grasshopper is typically too stiff and cold to hop after a cold night. Once the sun’s rays have warmed it up, it can leap around normally.
Examples of cold-blooded animals
Fish:
Fish are cold-blooded animals with a variable body temperature as they move across different climates. At different heights, the temperature of the water resources varies. As a result, the temperature of fish swings as they go from one depth to another. Fishes’ metabolism, fluid-electrolyte balance, and acid-base connection may all be affected by a sudden change in their environment. As a result, they make use of behavioural and physiological thermoregulation systems. Fish wander around a lot to find water that is the right temperature for them. For example, Tunas and lamnid sharks, have particular structural adaptations that allow them to save heat in their lateral swimming muscles by using countercurrent heat exchange.
Crocodiles:
Crocodiles are reptiles with cold blood and fluctuating body temperatureCrocodiles like a body temperature of 30-33°C, hence they travel between cold and warm areas of land and water to achieve it. The body of the bulk of these organisms is usually orientated toward the sun. They do, however, orient their small heads toward the sun as the body warms up to prevent heat absorption. They also open their mouths to evaporatively cool their brains. As a result, they use their temperature environs to achieve thermoregulation behaviour. Most reptiles’ skin contains specialized peripheral nerve endings that can respond to a variety of stimuli.
()
Warm-blooded Animals
Animals that can regulate and maintain a constant internal temperature of the body. Warm-blooded animals can maintain constant internal body temperature and survive in any temperature range as they adapt to the harsh conditions of any kind of environment. Warm-blooded animals can be as active in the winter as they are in the summer, but they need enough food to keep warm. Birds’ higher body temperatures make it difficult for them to obtain enough food when the colder weather arrives in the winter, therefore the majority of them move to warmer climates where their bodies do not have to work as hard to keep warm. Examples include birds and mammals including humans.
The skin allows heat to exit the body. In the cold, layers of clothing assist humans to keep their bodies warm. Other mammals must rely on layers of fat or a fur covering to keep warm and protect themselves from the cold. Mammals with huge ears and long tails are not found in very cold areas. To replenish the heat lost from these huge surfaces, a lot of extra food would be needed—stuff that would be incredibly difficult to come by.
Examples of warm-blooded animals
Birds
Birds are warm-blooded creatures with a steady body temperature that does not fluctuate with the outside temperature. To keep a steady temperature, birds use a variety of metabolic activities that produce or lose heat. The birds’ feathers shield them from the cold and the heat.
To avoid heat loss, many birds, such as ducks, cover unfeathered body portions such as limbs beneath their feathers. In order to raise body temperature in cooler conditions, they boost metabolic activity rates physiologically. Some birds may flock to the water to cool off by evaporation. Birds’ ability to survive extreme temperatures while maintaining a consistent internal temperature contributes to the diversity of their ecological niche.
Mammals
Warm-blooded mammals have a consistent body temperature regardless of the outside temperature. These animals’ bodies are coated in hair or fur, which aids in maintaining a consistent body temp. In addition to these structural characteristics, a variety of physiological and behavioural adaptations aid in internal temperature management.
Different mammal species utilize distinct ecological locations around the world because they have different adaptation mechanisms. Mammalian thermoregulation is mediated by a number of different systems. Some people generate heat, while others want to keep the heat they already have. In animals, temperature regulation serves as a defensive mechanism against diseases and pathogen attacks.
()
Thermoregulation
A popular term associated with cold-blooded and warm-blooded animals is thermoregulation. Thermoregulation is an organism’s ability to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when they have to face different temperature in varied surroundings. Thermoregulation is divided into different types including Endothermic (homeothermic or warm-blooded) or Ectothermic (poikilothermic or cold-blooded).
-
The endothermic (warm-blooded) and ectothermic (cold-blooded) categories of animals either make their own heat or they get it from the environment.
-
Homeothermic and Poikilothermic animals describe whether the temperature is constant.
-
Homeothermic animals have constant body temperature regardless of external influence and they normally have high body temperature. Homeothermic animals are endothermic or warm-blooded animals. Examples include birds and mammals. Therefore humans belong to the endothermic homeotherms as we produce our own heat and maintain it ourselves and it’s done through metabolism.
-
Poikilothermic animals are opposite to that of homeothermic animals as their internal body temperature keeps changing; and cannot regulate their own body temperature, rather depend upon the environment to regulate. Poikilothermic are ectothermi
c or cold-blooded animals. Examples include animals (vertebrates), we can see how lizards and reptiles take sunbaths to warm up their bodies to make their muscles or brain work. -
One more interesting term to know related to body temperature is mesothermic and this category of animals such as dinosaurs used to create and maintain their own body heat as well as utilise their environment.
-
Animals like fish, amphibians, most invertebrates and reptiles are ectothermic poikilotherms since they get heat from the environment and let their body temperature fluctuate.
Difference Between Warm Blooded and Cold-Blooded Animals
|
Characteristics |
Warm-Blooded Animals |
Cold Blooded Animals |
|
Body Temperature |
Keep its body temperature the same no matter what the outside temperature is, ie. They can maintain a constant body temperature. |
Their internal body temperature gets hotter or colder based on the temperature outside. So, they cannot maintain constant body temperature. |
|
Examples |
Mammals and birds are warm-blooded. |
Reptiles, insects, and fish (amphibians) including snakes, lizards, turtles, tortoises, alligators, and crocodiles, |
|
Energy |
They obtain energy from food consumption. |
They obtain energy from the surrounding environment. |
|
Effect of Body Fat |
Fat is pretty important for mammals or hot blooded animals as it helps animals like seals and whales to keep warm in the freezing oceans. |
Here, more fat causes overheating of the bodies that may also result in death. |
|
Chances of infections or diseases |
The constant heat of the bodies provide a perfect incubator for germs and are prone to get sick or infections. |
Cold blooded animals do not cultivate the germs easily thus preventing infections. However, if the bodies are cold for too long they will be unable to fight off infections and disease. |
|
Survival |
Endothermic creatures can live anywhere at ease usually by adding/removing extra layers of clothing in cold temperatures. Humans can even survive the coldest temperatures of Antarctica. |
It’s not the case in cold blooded animals as they cannot regulate the body temperature according to the environment. |
|
Body Temperature |
Most of this category of animals maintain a body temperature of around 37 degrees Celsius. |
A cold-blooded creature has exactly the same body temperature as its environment. |
|
Adjustments |
Brains get activated for mammals with the intake of food that produces heat and energy. And they adjust by sweating, shedding, or panting when the temperature is hot outside. |
Cold-blooded creatures like lizards are lazy and only come out in the sun for heat to get their brains to work properly. |
|
Metabolism Rate |
They don’t change their metabolic rate with the environmental changes. |
They change metabolic rates with changes in the environment. |
|
Extreme Temperatures |
They easily adapt to any temperatures outside. |
It’s difficult for them to survive in extreme temperature conditions. |
Warm-bloodedness is thought to have evolved in mammals and birds as a means of defence against fungal diseases. Only a small percentage of fungus can withstand the body temperatures of warm-blooded animals. Insects, reptiles, and amphibians, on the other hand, are tormented by fungal infections. Pathogens are picked up by mammals and other warm-blooded creatures from other hosts. Host pathogens have already acclimated to the high temperatures. Warm-blooded animals have a natural resistance against diseases picked up in the environment since pathogens aren’t adapted to the temperature differential. Cold blooded animals genetic structures are more complex than warm-blooded animals in the same ecological niche, such as frogs. The spread of these species in terrestrial and aquatic settings is limited since their metabolic activity is temperature dependant.