Do Birds Sweat?How Do Birds Keep Cool on Hot Days?Mar 15, 2007 Rosemary Drisdelle
Birds don't sweat but they have other ways of cooling off when they get too hot.
Do birds sweat? Birds’ normal body temperature is higher than ours, so they don’t need to shed heat as soon, but they can get warm inside their thick layer of feathers. Birds don’t have sweat glands so they don’t sweat, but they have a few other ways to keep cool on hot days and get rid of excess body heat:
Small birds have a high surface-to-volume ratio and are susceptible to heat loss, so staying warm is more of a problem for them than cooling off. This is why very small birds, such as some hummingbirds, must consume a lot of high energy food and don’t do well in cooler climates. Related content:Sources:Ornithology.com "Metabolism and Thermoregulation." Perrins, Christopher Ed. Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. New York: Firefly Books. 2003.
The copyright of the article Do Birds Sweat? in Birds is owned by Rosemary Drisdelle. Permission to republish Do Birds Sweat? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
Comments Dec 17, 2008 1:54 PM
Guest :
Jun 2, 2009 12:24 AM
Guest :
2 Comments
Related Topics
Reference
|