How do animals adapt to different environment? Essay

Do you ever wonder how animals adapt to different environment? Whether to keep warm in the cold, or keep cool in the scorching temperature. Well vertebrates, mammals, and birds are masters at maintaining homeostasis. They are warmblooded animals generating their own body heat. This has enabled many mammals and birds to occupy much of the Earth today.

Different animals can either be warmblooded or coldblooded. Birds and mammals are warm blooded while the rest of the animal kingdom is coldblooded. Mammals body temperature ranges to 97 F to 103 F birds body temperature averages to 105 F. Coldblooded animals however, cannot maintain a constant body temperature. If it is 50 F outside then their body temperature will drop to 50 F. That will keep happening whenever the temperatures outside changes, so making the animal as well change their body temperature.

Generating energy is the utmost important for warmblooded animals to have a constant temperature. Mammals and birds need to consume more food and energy rather than coldblooded animals. They heat they lose is proportional to their surface area of their body, so they can produce more heat than they are losing. That makes it an easy task to stabilize them to the correct temperature. Food will convert into chemical energy or potential energy which will be later metabolized. The byproducts of internal combustion within the food generally contain carbon dioxide and water. This process will make it exothermic, causing it to produce heat.

Another way for warmblooded animals to survive is hibernation. Animals like bears, skunks, and groundhogs hibernate in the winter. Bears usually start hibernating from October to April. During hibernation their body temperature drops, breathing rate slows down, and as well their heart rate drops down. They can hibernate because they can rely on the fats they have been gaining in the summer and the fall months this is the same for most animals that hibernate. Coldblooded animals need less fat because of less energy required. The cells of coldblooded animals like frogs go though osmosis. The water freezes outside the cell causing water to move out. The glucose outside the cell begins to move inside the cell to reach equilibrium. The high concentration of solutes gives the capability for frogs to survive at extreme cold temperatures.

Lack of sweat glands can also benefit different animals. The pig, for example, they have no sweat glands. To maintain homeostasis, they roll in the mud. Rolling in the mud also gives them extra benefits like protecting them from insect bites and the sun powerful rays. Rhinoceros do the same thing they roll in mud to maintain homeostasis, but they are also protected from exotic parasites lurking to capture their next victim. Hippopotamus stays at some body of water to regulate its body temperature. A hippos skin must be wet or they will get dehydrated quickly. They red bloodlooking ooze coming from the pores of the hippo once it is out the water protects it from the elements and dehydration.