The animal world is diverse and amazing. They differ from each other in many biological characteristics. I would like to dwell on the ratio of animals to ambient temperature and find out: what are cold-blooded animals?
General concepts
In biology, there are concepts of cold-blooded (poikilothermic) and warm-blooded (homeothermic) organisms. It is believed that cold-blooded animals are those whose body temperature is unstable and depends on the environment. Warmbloods do not have this dependence and are characterized by the constancy of body temperature. So which animals are called cold-blooded?
Variety of cold-blooded animals
In zoology, cold-blooded animals are examples of low-organized classes of the animal world. These include all invertebrates and part of the vertebrates: fish, amphibians, reptiles. The exception is crocodiles, which are also reptiles. Currently, another type of mammal is also referred to this type - the naked mole rat. Studying evolution, many scientists until recently attributed to the cold-blooded and dinosaurs. However, at the present moment, there is an opinion that they were still warm-blooded by the inertial type of thermoregulation. This means that the ancient giants had the ability to accumulate and retain due to the huge mass of solar heat, which allowed them to maintain a constant temperature.
Features of life
Cold-blooded animals are those that, due to a poorly developed nervous system, have an imperfect system of regulation of the basic vital processes in the body. Consequently, the metabolism in cold-blooded animals also has a low level. Indeed, it proceeds much more slowly than in warm-blooded ones (20-30 times). In this case, the body temperature is 1-2 degrees higher than the ambient temperature or equal to it. This dependence is limited in time and is associated with the ability to accumulate heat from objects and the sun or to warm up as a result of muscular work if approximately constant parameters are maintained outside. In the same case, when the external temperature falls below the optimum, all metabolic processes in cold-blooded ones slow down. Animal reactions become inhibited, remember sleepy flies, butterflies and bees in the fall. When there is a decrease in the temperature regime by two or more degrees in nature, these organisms fall into a stupor (suspended animation), undergo stress, and sometimes die.
Seasonality
In inanimate nature there is the concept of changing the time of year. These phenomena are especially pronounced in the northern and temperate latitudes. Absolutely all organisms respond to these changes. Cold-blooded animals are examples of adaptations of living organisms to temperature changes in the environment.
Environmental adaptation
The peak activity of cold-blooded and the main life processes (mating, reproduction, breeding offspring) falls on the warm period - spring and summer. At this time, we can see a lot of insects everywhere and observe their life cycles. In near-water and water areas, you can find a lot of amphibians (frogs) and fish at different stages of development.
In forests and meadows quite often there are reptiles (lizards, snakes, snakes) of different generations.
With the advent of autumn or at the end of summer, animals begin to intensively prepare for wintering, which most of them spend in suspended animation. In order not to die in the period of cold weather, preparatory processes for the supply of nutrients in their organisms occur in advance, throughout the summer. At this time, the cellular composition changes, it becomes less water and more dissolved components, which will provide the nutrition process throughout the winter period. With decreasing temperature, the metabolic rate also slows down, energy consumption decreases, which allows the cold-blooded to spend the whole winter in hibernation, without worrying about getting food. Also, an important step in preparing for adverse temperature conditions is the construction of closed "rooms" for wintering (pits, holes, houses, etc.). All these life phenomena are cyclical in nature and are repeated from year to year.
These processes are also unconditional (innate) reflexes that are inherited from generation to generation. Animals that undergo certain mutations in the genes responsible for the transmission of this information die during the first year of life, and their offspring can also inherit these disorders and be non-viable.
The impetus for awakening from suspended animation is an increase in air temperature to the required level, which is characteristic for each class, and sometimes the species.
According to evolutionary doctrine, cold-blooded animals are lower creatures whose thermoregulatory mechanisms are also not perfect due to the weak development of the nervous system.