I watched the birds in our garden and was wondering if they feel cold being outside all day. Then I wondered about polar bears and sperm whales too, we always say “their feathers/fur/fat keeps them warm”, but let’s say they didn’t have these factors: Would they feel the same sensation of “cold” like we do or would they not even notice it, does their skin have less sensitive temperature receptors for example?
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All sorts of animsls have different ways of sending temperature. Even humans sense temperature as a change in temperature rather than strict measurement. You can see this by touching a piece of wood and a piece of metal that are the same temperature.
Different animals also adapt to certain temperatures, both physiologically with evolution and psychologically individually. Humans that grow up in Norway will perceive cold differently than humans that grow up in Egypt.
Any warm-blooded animal will “feel” cold when its body temperature drops to a dangerous level. But animals have adapted to their surroundings. What does a sperm whale do if he gets cold? Probaly swim to warmer waters. They have a thick skin, lots of insulation. What would a polar bear do? Use the sun to get warmer. They even have black skin under their fur to absorb as much sunlight as possible. Their fur is adapted to allow light to pass through, mostly infrared I would assume.
Humans wear clothing, animals have the “clothing” that nature provides them with. In their natural habitat they will be fine.
edit: cold-blooded animals probably dont have this issue.
edit2: But they would still have to maintain a minimum temperature. They can freeze to death too. So I would expect that they can feel cold too. But it is probably not as dooming as when warm-blooded animal feels it.
Another way to think about this question is how animals cool themselves.
Humans and horses (partly) cool by sweating. That means they will feel humidity as being hotter than animals that don’t sweat and feel cool breezes as being cooler.
Dogs cool by panting (they sweat a tad through their paws, but not enough.) The cooler external air goes into their lungs and transfers heat there. Evaporation also plays a part, but less. This means dogs will not feel humidity as much as humans.
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