Is the naked mole-rat Hererocephalus glaber an endothermic yet poikilothermic mammal?
Abstract
1. 1. Thermoregulatory changes with ambient temperature ( T a) were monitored in Heterocephalus glaber between 12 and 37°C. 2. 2. At all T as monitored, body temperature ( T b) was directly proportional to T a ( T b = 0.568 + 10016 T a ). 3. 3. Below T a 29°C, V̇O 2 varied in a typically poikilothermic pattern, whereas above 29°C, V̇O 2 followed a typically endothermic pattern. 4. 4. At T as between 31 and 34°C, V̇O 2 was minimal (1.00 ± 0.09 ml/g/h), skin temperature was 1.8 ± 0.6° C lower than T b and evaporative water loss accounted for 173.7 ± 51.0% of the metabolic heat produced. 5. 5. The high rates of heat transfer are such that individual naked mole-rats cannot regulate T b over the entire range of measured T as and, as such, are poikilothermic mammals.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Thermal Biology
- Pub Date:
- January 1991
- DOI:
- 10.1016/0306-4565(91)90030-6
- Bibcode:
- 1991JTBio..16..227B
- Keywords:
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- Poikilothermic mammal;
- endothermy;
- skin temperature;
- high evaporative water loss;
- body temperature