... in order to keep their body temperature at an acceptable level?" To answer this, I will briefly describe several different kinds of animals and their various means of attaining a stable body temperature. Warm and cold-blooded animals: Warm-blooded animals are animals that are endothermic. This means that their main source of warmth is generated by themselves. These include birds and mammals. Cold-blooded animals rely on the temperature of their surroundings to determine their body temperature. These are ectothermic, and include almost all animals, excluding mammals and birds. Whale: Whales are large marine mammals that have to retain a mammalian temperature of 37 º Celsius in waters as cold as 4 º Celsius. They have various methods of doing so, such as a thick layer of blubber underneath their skin, which acts as an insulator and reduces conduction, because blubber is a poor conductor of heat. Whales also have decreased breathing rates, which also helps ...

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