Thursday 14 May 2015

Warm-blooded Cold-blooded



Cold-blooded

While walking on the pavements during the early morning sun, have you spotted some lizards sunning themselves in the open?




OK, for those who have already given back biology to their teachers, lizards are reptiles and reptiles are cold-blooded animals.

Which means they do not have their own "internal combustion engine" inside their bodies to generate heat. They need to "sun" themselves to warm their bodies up. That's is why on cloudy days, you don't see reptiles running around...

What's the benefit in that?

With a lower resting metabolism rate, reptiles need less fuel to sustain their bodily functions. For eg, a crocodile needs only 1/7 of what a lion of the same weight needs for food, and can go half a year without eating.  



Warm-blooded

Mammals are warm-blooded animals. And yes, that include us. In contrast to reptiles, we have our own "internal combustion engine" inside us. 

We generate our own heat.





It's an advantage whether we are a predator chasing after our food, or as prey running from our predators.

Can you imagine when you need to act immediately, and you go, "Wait, give me 2 more hours in the sun and I'll be good to go!"

Either the opportunity has passed you by or you are already dead meat...

The drawback? We mammals "eat fuel heavy heavy". We are fuel guzzlers compared to reptiles.

Hence the need to constantly look for food and prey every day due to our higher metabolism rate.

The constant hunger...



The allegory









(Please fill in the blanks yourself)


There! You now know whether you are cold-blooded or warm-blooded! Wink.





10 comments:

  1. Hi SMOL

    How about warm blooded animal attacking own warm blooded animal species? A person taking advantage of another's loss in the stock market...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. B,

      You tell me.

      You''re invested in the markets ;)

      I have in mind another blog post about that zero sum thing. So I shall keep mum for now :)

      Delete
  2. Allegory?

    Make your wealth by saving more and consuming little.

    Or but earning as much as possible and having the warchest to kill...

    Human seems to have the ability to be best of both world? No? Eat little and last longer or eat big big hunt big big.

    Also worst of both world?
    Kill but dun eat ...
    Kill for fun, pride...

    I wish to be cold blooded. U?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sillyinvestor,

      I think I'll wait till Saturday to share what's the allegory or metaphor for this post so as not to spoil the fun for others ;)

      Humans eat a little?

      The Southern Transmission School of Buddhist monks - they don't eat once noon has passed.

      Of course don't count famine cases...

      Other than that. I can only think of girls who willing starve themselves for the sake of "beauty".

      I don't think humans are the only animals on earth who kill for fun. I've seen our neighbourhood cat playing with the mice it caught...


      P.S.. By the way, congratulations for sharing your pic in your blog post ;)
      That makes you one of the few financial bloggers who do not have a need to wear a brown paper bag over their heads ;)

      Delete
  3. Hi SMOL,

    Interesting take! I do think I aspire to be more cold-blooded than warm-blooded in this case. At least, that's what appears to be easier to me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Welcome back 15HWW!

      From your blog, somehow I'm not surprised you aspire to be "cold-blooded" ;)

      There's no right or wrong answers. Reptiles have survived since the days of the dinosaurs. So it has stood the test of time!

      Having said that, with the demise of the dinosaurs, mammals took the opportunity to displace reptiles as current "rulers" of Earth.

      The insects are probably patiently waiting for us mammals to mess up and usurp the crown from us....


      P.S. You and your wife have a good tag team going over there. You both seem to be taking turns at taking sabbatical ;)

      Now who says singles have the advantage?

      青春无敌!

      Delete
  4. Hi SMOL,

    I'm definitely warm blooded. I don't want to be beholden to the environment to function, as such I would have to change the environment, make it constant so that my internal body functions can be kept constant. Interesting how we have to manipulate the environment so that inside is constant. It's a matter of being self sufficient, so that I can rely less on the temp of the environment to regulate my internal functions.

    Since I lose more heat, I've to eat more. Sure, but it's a good trade-off. I get to experience more life in an alert state, rather than live sluggishly for a longer time. Do I want quantity of life or quality of life? I'll choose the later.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Smol

    Cold blooded animals somehow have the "ability" to blend well and adjust to the surroundings compared to Warm blooded animals aka "hot" blooded animals

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Small Time Investor,

      The use of camouflage is equally prevalent between cold and warm blooded living organisms ;)

      Delete

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