Torpid
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Torpid
Torpor is a state of decreased physiological activity in an animal, usually marked by a reduced body temperature and metabolic rate. Torpor enables animals to survive periods of reduced food availability. The term "torpor" can refer to the time a hibernator spends at low body temperature, lasting days to weeks, or it can refer to a period of low body temperature and metabolism lasting less than 24 hours. The word comes from the early 13th century, originating from the Latin, ''torpor'', to be numb or sluggish. Animals that undergo torpor include birds (hummingbirds, notably strisores) and some mammals, including many marsupial species, rodent species (such as mice), and bats. During the active part of their day, such animals maintain normal body temperature and activity levels, but their metabolic rate and body temperature drop during a portion of the day (usually night) to conserve energy. Some animals seasonally go into long periods of inactivity, with reduced body temperat ...
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Body Temperature
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation. The internal thermoregulation process is one aspect of homeostasis: a state of dynamic stability in an organism's internal conditions, maintained far from thermal equilibrium with its environment (the study of such processes in zoology has been called physiological ecology). If the body is unable to maintain a normal temperature and it increases significantly above normal, a condition known as hyperthermia occurs. Humans may also experience lethal hyperthermia when the wet bulb temperature is sustained above for six hours. Work in 2022 established by experiment that a wet-bulb temperature exceeding 30.55°C caused uncompensable heat stress in young, he ...
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Circadian Rhythm
A circadian rhythm (), or circadian cycle, is a natural oscillation that repeats roughly every 24 hours. Circadian rhythms can refer to any process that originates within an organism (i.e., Endogeny (biology), endogenous) and responds to the environment (is Entrainment (chronobiology), entrained by the environment). Circadian rhythms are regulated by a circadian clock whose primary function is to rhythmically co-ordinate biological processes so they occur at the correct time to maximize the fitness of an individual. Circadian rhythms have been widely observed in animals, plants, fungi and cyanobacteria and there is evidence that they evolved independently in each of these kingdoms of life. The term ''circadian'' comes from the Latin ', meaning "around", and ', meaning "day". Processes with 24-hour cycles are more generally called diurnal rhythms; diurnal rhythms should not be called circadian rhythms unless they can be confirmed as endogenous, and not environmental. Although ci ...
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Cairo Spiny Mouse
The Cairo spiny mouse (''Acomys cahirinus''), also known as the common spiny mouse, Egyptian spiny mouse, or Arabian spiny mouse, is a Nocturnality, nocturnal species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found in Africa north of the Sahara Desert, where its natural habitats are rocky areas and hot deserts. It is omnivorous, feeding on seeds, desert plants, snails, and insects. It is a gregarious animal and lives in small family groups. It is the first and only known rodent species that exhibit spontaneous decidualization and menstruation. Description The Cairo spiny mouse grows to a head and body length of about with a tail of much the same length. Adults weigh between . The colour of the Cairo spiny mouse is sandy-brown or greyish-brown above and whitish beneath. A line of spine-like bristles run along the ridge of the back. The snout is slender and pointed, the eyes are large, the ears are large and slightly pointed and the tail is devoid of hairs. The spiny mouse is known ...
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Interspecific Competition
Interspecific competition, in ecology, is a form of competition in which individuals of ''different'' species compete for the same resources in an ecosystem (e.g. food or living space). This can be contrasted with mutualism, a type of symbiosis. Competition between members of the same species is called intraspecific competition. If a tree species in a dense forest grows taller than surrounding tree species, it is able to absorb more of the incoming sunlight. However, less sunlight is then available for the trees that are shaded by the taller tree, thus interspecific competition. Leopards and lions can also be in interspecific competition, since both species feed on the same prey, and can be negatively impacted by the presence of the other because they will have less food. Competition is only one of many interacting biotic and abiotic factors that affect community structure. Moreover, competition is not always a straightforward, direct, interaction. Interspecific competition may ...
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Heterotherm
Heterothermy or heterothermia (from Greek ἕτερος ''heteros'' "other" and θέρμη ''thermē'' "heat") is a physiological term for animals that vary between self-regulating their body temperature, and allowing the surrounding environment to affect it. In other words, they exhibit characteristics of both poikilothermy and homeothermy. Definition Heterothermic animals are those that can switch between poikilothermic and homeothermic strategies. These changes in strategies typically occur on a daily basis or on an annual basis. More often than not, it is used as a way to dissociate the fluctuating metabolic rates seen in some small mammals and birds (e.g. bats and hummingbirds), from those of traditional cold blooded animals. In many bat species, body temperature and metabolic rate are elevated only during activity. When at rest, these animals reduce their metabolisms drastically, which results in their body temperature dropping to that of the surrounding environment ...
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Extinction Event
An extinction event (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity on Earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp fall in the diversity and abundance of multicellular organisms. It occurs when the rate of extinction increases with respect to the background extinction rate and the rate of speciation. Estimates of the number of major mass extinctions in the last 540 million years range from as few as five to more than twenty. These differences stem from disagreement as to what constitutes a "major" extinction event, and the data chosen to measure past diversity. The "Big Five" mass extinctions In a landmark paper published in 1982, Jack Sepkoski and David M. Raup identified five particular geological intervals with excessive diversity loss. They were originally identified as outliers on a general trend of decreasing extinction rates during the Phanerozoic, but as more stringent statistical tests have been applied t ...
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Eastern Long-eared Bat
The eastern long-eared bat (''Nyctophilus bifax'') is a small flying mammal, a vespertilionid bat. It is found in eastern Australia and Papua New Guinea. Taxonomy The first description of the species was published in 1915 by Oldfield Thomas, based on a male type specimen obtained from the Herberton district in the north of Queensland. Alternate names, aside from eastern long-eared bat, include the northern or north Queensland long-eared bat. Description A species of '' Nyctophilus'', smaller insectivorous bats of the widespread and diverse family Vespertilionidae, the common evening bats. The flight of the species is sometimes in quick and straight directions, less usual in other nyctophilus species, but they are able to assume a typical slower fluttering hover to capture prey. The foraging methods includes gleaning, taking insects from foliage or bark of plants, and adopts a perching stratagem or takes to the ground. Distribution and habitat The species resides under t ...
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Black-capped Chickadees
The black-capped chickadee (''Poecile atricapillus'') is a small, nonmigratory, North American passerine bird that lives in deciduous and mixed forests. It is a member of the Paridae family, also known as tits. It has a distinct black cap on its head, a black bib underneath, and white cheeks. It has a white belly, buff sides, and grey wings, back, and tail. The bird is well known for its vocalizations, including its ''fee-bee'' call and its ''chick-a-dee-dee-dee'' call, from which it derives its name. The black-capped chickadee is widely distributed throughout North America, ranging from the northern United States to southern Canada and all the way up to Alaska and Yukon. It feeds primarily on insects and seeds, and is known for its ability to cache food for use during the winter. The hippocampus of the black-capped chickadee grows during the caching season, which is believed to help it better remember its cache locations. The black-capped chickadee is a social bird and forms ...
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Metabolism
Metabolism (, from ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cellular processes; the conversion of food to building blocks of proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates; and the elimination of metabolic wastes. These enzyme-catalyzed reactions allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their Structures#Biological, structures, and respond to their environments. The word ''metabolism'' can also refer to the sum of all chemical reactions that occur in living organisms, including digestion and the transportation of substances into and between different cells, in which case the above described set of reactions within the cells is called intermediary (or intermediate) metabolism. Metabolic reactions may be categorized as ''catabolic''—the ''breaking down'' of compounds (for example, of glucose to pyruvate by c ...
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Anna's Hummingbird In Nocturnal Torpor During Winter In Vancouver, BC
Anna's may refer to: *Anna's hummingbird (''Calypte anna'') * Anna's Linens, a US retailer of household linens and other home goods * Anna's Taqueria, a fast-food chain in the Boston area * Anna's Swedish Thins, a brand of cookie manufactured by Lotus Bakeries * Anna's Archive Anna's Archive is an open source search engine for shadow library, shadow libraries that was launched by Anna shortly after law enforcement efforts to Z-Library#United States, shut down Z-Library in 2022. The site aggregates records from major ...
, a search engine for shadow libraries {{disambig ...
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Polar Bear
The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a large bear native to the Arctic and nearby areas. It is closely related to the brown bear, and the two species can Hybrid (biology), interbreed. The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear and land carnivore, with adult males weighing . The species is sexually dimorphic, as adult females are much smaller. The polar bear is white- or yellowish-furred with black skin and a thick layer of fat. It is more slender than the brown bear, with a narrower skull, longer neck and lower shoulder hump. Its teeth are sharper and more adapted to cutting meat. The paws are large and allow the bear to walk on ice and paddle in the water. Polar bears are both terrestrial and Pagophily, pagophilic (ice-living) and are considered marine mammals because of their dependence on marine ecosystems. They prefer the annual sea ice but live on land when the ice melts in the summer. They are mostly carnivorous and specialized for preying on pinniped, se ...
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Brown Bear
The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America. Of the land carnivorans, it is rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear, which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on average. The brown bear is a sexually dimorphic species, as adult males are larger and more compactly built than females. The fur ranges in color from cream to reddish to dark brown. It has evolved large hump muscles, unique among bears, and paws up to wide and long, to effectively dig through dirt. Its teeth are similar to those of other bears and reflect its Dietary biology of the brown bear, dietary plasticity. Throughout the brown bear's range, it inhabits mainly forest, forested habitats in elevations of up to . It is omnivorous, and consumes a variety of plant and animal species. Contrary to popular belief, the brown bear derives 90% of its diet from plants. When hunting, it will target animals as small as insects and rodents to thos ...
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