Concept in Definition ABC

The term homeotherm is used to account for that animal that keeps its temperature constant and very al margin of the temperature of the environment in which it is found because it has developed mechanisms that allow it to regulate it in the face of changes that occur abroad; is the case of birds and mammals, mostly.

Meanwhile, the state of affairs just described is possible because of the homeothermy or endothermy, which is the process from which homeothermic living beings manage to maintain their body temperature within constant limits and regardless of the ambient temperature, consuming chemical energy that comes from the food that they ingest, because they have sophisticated mechanisms that allow them to produce heat in cold environments and give up heat in those rather cold environments.
The aforementioned mechanisms are located in the hypothalamus, the skin, the respiratory system, among the main ones.

As a consequence of this self-sufficiency of heat, for example, penguins are able to resist and survive in extremely low temperatures.

Meanwhile, when the ambient temperature is very high, the wise mechanism of homeothermic animals lowers considerably in order to save on Energy.

As mentioned above, mammals and birds are the two large groups that possess this characteristic, although not the only ones, there are some species of shark that show this thermoregulatory disposition.

And on the contrary of the homeotherms we find the ectotherms, which are those animals that do not have the aforementioned self-regulatory mechanism. For example, reptiles They are a true reflection of ectotherms, since they need to be exposed for long hours in the sun to achieve the ideal temperature for their metabolism works correctly; By not being able to produce heat, the ectotherm does not waste energy and can therefore go a long time without feeding, that is, the snake can go months without eating mammal yes or yes needs to feed daily.