Aestivate – To sleep
very deeply (to the point of lowering critical life functions substantially) in
summer to escape hot, dry weather.
Cold-blooded – Some animals
cannot heat their own blood, so their body temperatures change depending on the
weather. These animals have to move back and forth from sunshine to shade to
keep from getting too cold or too hot and most of them cannot live in really
cold climates at all. These are called cold-blooded animals. Examples are fish,
amphibians and reptiles.
Digestion – This is what
your body does to food, turning it into the parts of your body and into energy
to move your body.
Ectothermic – The
scientific name for “cold-blooded.” It means “outside heat.”
Endothermic
–
The scientific name for “warm-blooded.” It means “inside heat.”
Hibernate – Going into
something like suspended animation for the winter. Suspended animation is like
a very deep sleep in which all the animal's body functions become very slow. It
is NOT just sleeping through the winter. Some animals do sleep in winter, but
hibernation is much more than just being asleep. A hibernating animal's heart
almost stops, its temperature drops very close to freezing, and it only
breathes a few times a day.
Homeothermy
–
Another scientific word for “warm-blooded.” It means “even heat” and refers to
the fact that true warm-blooded animals can regulate their body temperatures
and keep them close to the particular temperature at which their bodies work
best.
Metabolism – A general
term for all the chemical processes that go on in an animal's body, but
especially common as a term for processing of food into body tissues, energy
and waste materials.
Oxygen – An invisible
gas that is in the air and in water that fires need to burn and that animals
need to "burn" their food to get energy from it.
Poison – Stuff found
in animal and plant bodies that can kill an animal or make it sick if it gets
inside the animal. Some poisons get inside an animal when the animal eats the
thing containing the poison. Some animals make a special kind of poison called
venom that they can stick inside you with stingers or teeth, like wasps and
rattlesnakes. Human factories also make some poisonous chemicals.
Venom – A poison
that is injected into the victim by biting or stinging.
Warm-blooded – Some animals
including people use part of their food energy to keep their blood at a certain
temperature. We call these warm-blooded animals. This is why your mother checks
your temperature when you feel sick. Birds and mammals are warm-blooded animals.
Some scientists think all dinosaurs or at least some dinosaurs were
warm-blooded, but some other scientists still doubt that.