Gigantothermy

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File:White shark.jpg

The great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, exhibits gigantothermy

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. 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.

See also

• Bergmann's rule
• Temperature effects

External links

• Gigantothermy at Davidson