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Animal ethology Comparative psychology Animal models · Zoology

Gigantothermy (sometimes called ectothermic homeothermy) is a phenomenon with significance in biology and paleontology, whereby large, bulky ectothermic animals are more easily able to maintain a constant, relatively high body temperature than smaller animals by virtue of their smaller surface area to volume ratio.^[1] A bigger animal has proportionately less of its body close to the outside environment than a smaller animal of otherwise similar shape, and so it gains heat from, or loses heat to, the environment much more slowly.^[2]

Effects on behaviorEdit

See alsoEdit

• Bergmann's rule
• Temperature effects

NotesEdit

External linksEdit

• Gigantothermy at Davidson