Apologies if this has already been asked before, but it struck me today that I don’t know the answer to this and I couldn’t find it after trying to look it up.
Could anybody explain why warm-blooded animals, like humans, need to stay warm to survive? It looks like death by hypothermia is caused by the body desperately trying to maintain core temperature, but why is that so important in the first place? It’s not like you’re at risk of your blood freezing in your veins, so I’m puzzled. I’d be super grateful if anybody could explain why maintaining body temperature is so critical!
In: Biology
Warmth allows the chemical reactions that power our muscles to work more efficiently. A cold-blooded animal needs to warm up in the sun before they can move fast, otherwise they are very sluggish and can’t catch food. Many warm blooded animals have evolved to always have enough warmth to move and have lost the ability to function at too low a temperature. Eventually thing will happen like the heart muscle too weak to be able to pump enough blood and other organs will fail. Some animals have the ability to husband what resources they manage to build up and can slow their metabolism to operate at lower body temperatures by hibernating, we can’t.
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