• Question: What makes an animal warm or cold blooded?

    Asked by tobes123 to Asif, Laura, Lena, Sean, Viv on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Sean Murphy

      Sean Murphy answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      The terms actually don’t have anything to do with blood except for the fact that blood helps move the heat throughout the body. Cold blooded, or exothermic animals are not able to regulate their internal temperatures. They have to sit in the sun to warm up and sit in the shade to cool off. Warm blooded, or endothermic animals can keep a pretty constant internal temperature. It actually has to do with the part of the brain that controls body regulation, not with the heart.

    • Photo: Laura Waters

      Laura Waters answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Some evolved one way and some the other, simple as that!

    • Photo: Lena Ciric

      Lena Ciric answered on 22 Mar 2012:

      There are warm blooded reptiles, birds and insects, so it is thought that warm bloodedness evolved a number of times in a number of different ways. Moths, bees, beetles and grasshoppers all use flight or the flapping of their wings to generate heat.

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