Five Ways Animals Keep Their Cool
As we humans get ready to beat the summer heat, we’re taking a look at different ways animals thermoregulate, or keep internal body temperature stable. Here are just a few ways animals stay chill:
Honeybees act like mini air conditioners
Honeybees don’t just buzz around looking for nectar and pollen; they also need to find water. One duty of the female worker bees is to act as the hive’s thermostat. They especially want to keep things comfortable for the baby bees, which develop in wax cells and are more sensitive to heat. After bringing water back to the hive, worker bees fan it to make it evaporate faster and lower the temperature of the air in the hive. This tactic is actually pretty similar to an early form of AC used by humans: putting an ice block in front of a fan.
Birds “flutter”—and not like flying
Birds don’t sweat, but some of them use a cooling method that’s similar to the panting of a dog: gular fluttering. Birds will open their beaks and rapidly expand and contract their gular, or throat, areas. This fluttering motion helps move air faster, causing water in a bird’s mouth and throat to evaporate and cool down nearby blood vessels.
Some birds that you might see using gular fluttering to stay cool are egrets, pelicans, doves, and owls.
Ground squirrels have a shady strategy
Some small rodents actually seem to like the heat. In fact, antelope squirrels living in the southwestern U.S. can be seen darting around on 100-degree days. This ground squirrel sometimes uses its tail to shield itself from the sun, like a built-in umbrella. Or when the heat gets unbearable, it’ll duck into one of the cool burrows it builds around its home base. Antelope squirrels also use “heat dumping”: they flatten out in a shady spot to radiate heat faster through their bellies, where their fur is thin.
Dik-diks conserve water and stay hydrated
These small African antelopes have adapted to life in a hot, dry climate. They survive even when water is hard to find, thanks to a snout that is not only adorable but also highly functional. A dik-dik’s extra-long nose enables it to recover the water it loses from its lungs at each breath. As the antelope breathes out, the air begins to cool and condenses into water while it travels down the elongated nose. Instead of sweating, dik-diks pant to cool off, which they can do without losing water. Another way they conserve precious water is by licking drops of condensation off their noses.
Tuna keep a cool exterior
While the tuna may be regarded as a cold-blooded predator among fishes, warm- versus cold-blooded isn’t really the whole story. Tuna are active a lot of the time, hunting or migrating. They can keep swimming quickly and not overheat thanks to regional endothermy: the ability to control the temperature in certain parts of the body. Tuna use their red muscles, which have extra blood vessels, to power through swimming long distances. They can transfer heat between warmer and cooler blood vessels to keep the swimming muscles at a higher temperature without overheating the rest of the body.
