ectotherm, n. Zool.
(ˈɛktəʊθɜːm)
[f. ecto- + Gr. θέρµ-η heat, after poikilotherm n., etc.]
An ectothermic animal.
| 1940 R. B. Cowles in Amer. Naturalist LXXIV. 549 The most convenient and descriptive categories result in a division into heliotherms and thigmotherms, the former receiving their heat chiefly through basking, the latter, chiefly through contact with substances in the environment... Such a division naturally leads to the collective name ‘ectotherm’ as an adjunct of or substitute for the inadequate characterization provided by the word ‘poikilotherm’. 1944 Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. LXXXIII. 267/1 There is little available information on the influence that desert climates exert on ectotherm activities. 1967 F. E. J. Fry in A. H. Rose Thermobiol. xi. 403 Cowles..proposes the abandonment of the word ‘poikilotherm’. He suggests that ectotherm be used instead on the grounds that the poikilotherm does, by behavioural regulation, really control its body temperature. 1972 Nature 14 July 82/1 Small ectotherms allow body temperature to fall when environmental conditions are adverse to behavioural thermoregulation. 1989 Functional Ecol. III. 693 Many..permeable-skinned ectotherms engage in extensive terrestrial activity independent of the presence of standing water. |