Anti-hot tactics of animals

Shortness of breath, sweating, moving into shady areas are popular ways of cooling animals.

Dog and cat

Dogs cool off by breathing quickly.(Photo: The Dogington Post).

"All cooling methods in mammals are through the transfer of water from liquid form to vapor to release heat in the process," said Yana Kamberov, professor of genetics at Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. told Science Friday.

Dogs and cats evaporate water through heat convection as they breathe rapidly, thereby cooling the body. They also sweat, but unlike humans, sweat doesn't help them get hot. For most mammals, sweat glands focus only on a certain place.

The thick cushion under the cat's feet is the perspiration. The perspiration of cats is not to cool but to create clinging force, similar to when we use dry hands to touch objects, it will be more slippery than wet hands.

Horse

The horse sweats to cool the body while running.(Photo: FeedXL).

The main way to heat the horse is to breathe quickly. But unlike cats and dogs, horses also cool their bodies through sweat. Their sweat glands are different from humans."Many of the animals that frequently run have sweat glands of this type. They are the first glands and are attached to the hair on the horse," Kamberov explained.

When sweating, horses not only secrete salt and water. They secrete a mixture of water, lipids, fats and proteins. Horses run a lot and shortness of breath is not effective when they are reaching their maximum speed. At this time, they cool the body by sweating.

Unlike humans, horses have thick skin and are waterproof, preventing the evaporation of sweat. To solve this problem, they create a protein-rich sweat that can wet the hair, making sweat more volatile.

Desert lizard

Lizards open their mouths to help the body lessen.(Photo: The Lizard Log).

"Cold-blooded species have a lot of cooling properties," said Rory Telemeco, a researcher at Auburn University. One of the important characteristics of reptiles achieved when evolving is the thick scales of the skin, helping them to retain water.

Cold-blooded animals must also manage a bit when they want to cool off. Desert lizards can open their mouths to evaporate on wet membranes. They also have another basic method of moving between hot and cool places. Not only lizards, this behavior is also common in many other animals.

This method is often used when animals have no mechanism to regulate their body temperature but instead have to adjust behavior to counteract the temperature difference.

Butterfly

Butterfly regulates temperature by behavior.(Photo: Flickr).

Like reptiles, butterflies also regulate temperature by behavior. On hot days, they will move into the cooling shade, then fly out again. They can also cool themselves while flying because heat convection occurs when flapping wings.

Insects are very heat resistant, but they are also affected if too hot."First they almost fall into a state of lethargy. They will get tense if they continue to keep that temperature. After that, insects can recover when the temperature drops. But if it goes up by a degree or moreover , they will die, "Telemeco explained.

Human

People sweat to cool down the body.(Photo: YouTube).

Chimpanzees, animals are very close to humans, cooling off by breathing quickly. However, people relieve heat mainly through sweating. In addition to the fact that the human nose is not long enough to cool with convection through shortness of breath, there are two other hypotheses about sweating.

"First, it allows us to go to places where there is no animal. If you cool your body by sweating, you can go out at the hottest times of the day, when most of the evil beasts must hide themselves. avoid the heat, " Kamberov said. People can tolerate heat for a long time because we persistently sweat to reduce heat.

The second hypothesis relates to the time of two million years ago, when people began to evolve into "durable runners". Running creates tremendous heat for the body and at that time, sweating is much more effective than shortness of breath.

However, sweat glands in human hands and feet are different, Kamberov explained. This is a genetic trait from human ancestors and they are not like the remaining cooling sweat glands.