Savanna elephants maintain homeothermy under African heat

Journal of Comparative Physiology. B, Biochemical, Systemic, and Environmental Physiology
Michael A MoleAndrea Fuller

Abstract

To conserve body water, mammals may reduce evaporative water loss by storing heat, allowing core body temperature to rise more than usual during the day, and to fall more than usual during the cooler night, so demonstrating heterothermy. It has been proposed that elephants are heterothermic, but body temperature never has been measured in elephants over 24 h at environmental temperatures higher than body temperature, where elephants would have to rely on evaporative cooling to maintain homeothermy. We used ingested temperature data loggers to record core temperature of four partly free-ranging savanna elephants exposed to high solar radiation and environmental temperatures that exceeded core temperature (> 36 °C) in their natural habitat. The elephants maintained core temperature at an average 36.6 °C within narrow daily limits of about 1.3 °C. While mean 24-h core temperature increased with maximum air temperature, it did not increase with mean air temperature. Maximum and minimum daily core temperatures also did not change with maximum air temperatures. As a result, core temperature range remained constant despite large variations in daily air temperatures. Contrary to the view that elephants exhibit heterothermy to cope with...Continue Reading

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Citations

Dec 1, 2020·Temperature : Multidisciplinary Biomedical Journal·Roberto Refinetti
Feb 26, 2021·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Andrea FullerEdward P Snelling

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
environmental thermal stress

Software Mentioned

nlme
R
R Core team

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