Mammals have adapted to live in various habitats, temperatures, and environments. Although mammals all share the same characteristics, I wanted to look into how they survive in these different conditions.
Mammals are endothermic and can regulate the temperature inside their bodies. Mammals regulate their temperature using oxygen and blood circulation by turning food into energy.
If you want to find out how different types of mammals survive and keep warm in extreme conditions, I have some further information below.
Metabolic Rate
Mammals have adapted to lead different lifestyles in various habitats and environments. The key to this is their metabolic rate. The metabolic rate measures how the chemical processes in the mammal’s cells produce the energy they require for their daily activities.
Their daily activities include internal bodily functions, contraction of the muscles during movement, and the brain’s use in processing information. The animals also require energy to stop their bodies from cooling down when the conditions are cold.
Energy is taken from the food that they eat. Carbohydrates and fats are broken down into water and carbon dioxide. Animals have different states of metabolic rates. The lowest is called the basal level.
This is usually when the animal is resting. The highest metabolic rate would be when they are running at full speed. This is called the maximum level.
Different animals have different measurements of basal level and maximum level. Mammals have a metabolic rate that is very high compared to other animals.
A cold-blooded animal, like a crocodile, would have a low metabolism. A warm-blooded mammal may have a metabolic rate that is five to ten times higher, even in the resting basal state.

The high metabolic rate allows the animal to run further, hunt for longer, climb further, and swim greater distances without stopping and resting.
The extra heat generated from having a high metabolic rate allows the body to be kept at a constant, higher temperature.
This will enable mammals to live in various temperatures, ranging from the arctic fox that lives in icy conditions to the pronghorn, making its home in hot, desert conditions.
This extra heat generated by their high metabolic rate also allows mammals to function both during the day and the night.
Endothermy
This physiology of mammals is called endothermy. This involves their constant body temperature, maximum activity level, and high metabolic rate.
The primary source of heat is chemical reactions in the body tissues. This is in contrast to animals that are classed as ectotherms. Animals such as reptiles and amphibians source heat from the environment around them, grading them as ectotherms.
Endothermy is linked to almost every part of a mammal’s life. The high metabolic rate is due to endothermy. Mitochondria in the cells produce energy, distributed through the bloodstream as heat to maintain the body’s temperature. In a resting mammal, the major organs, such as the brain, intestines, kidneys, and liver, produce most of the heat.
Once the animal moves, the muscles will produce large amounts of heat.
Are all mammals warm-blooded? Find out here in an article I have written.
How Does a Mammal Keep Their Temperature Constant?
A large amount of heat produced in the tissues keeps the mammal’s body temperature constant above the external heat. By keeping the body’s temperature higher than outside, the heat flows away from the body.
The body of a mammal is very complex, and the temperature inside is continually changing to let the body know how much heat should be transferred away from the skin.
Changing the capillaries of the skin alters the blood flow to the surface. These can be opened or closed as required. If the animal is too hot, it will open the veins, letting heat out. They will complete the veins if they are feeling cold.
In mammals with fur, the body’s temperature can be changed by flattening the hair or fluffing it up. This allows different amounts of air to be trapped in the pelt. If the animal is too hot, it will let more air get to the body.
Although the mammal can control its temperature this way, there are limits to how high or low the animal can regulate its body temperature.
Thermal Neutral Zone
The thermal neutral zone (TNZ) is a range of temperatures in the mammal’s environment to maintain their average temperature. The thermal neutral zone is based on the mammal not using any energy beyond its lowest metabolic rate.
If the temperature outside the body falls below the TNZ, the mammal will feel cold. The body’s heat is lost from the skin too quickly, and the animal will cool down.
To combat this, the animal must increase its heat production. This can be done in a variety of ways. To generate extra heat from the muscles, the animal may start to shiver.
This is an excellent way to increase heat over the short term, but over a more extended period, such as the winter, they need a different technique. To increase their temperature over a more extended period, they must increase their lowest base metabolic rate.
If the external temperature exceeds the body temperature, the body will not lose heat fast enough through the skin. In this case, their bodies will use evaporation.
The skin will start to sweat from sweat glands. Another way that their bodies deal with this is through panting from the mouth. This releases sweat from the moist membranes of the mouth.
Different mammals have different thermal neutral zones, allowing them to live in different environments.
Why Can Mammals Live In Such Different Environments?
Whereas other animals, such as amphibians and reptiles, rely on the sun to provide a constant body temperature, mammals rely on their bodies to maintain their temperature. Using their bodies, mammals can live in conditions ranging from icy tundra to hot deserts.
Different types of mammals have different thermal neutral zones. The thick fur on an arctic fox allows them to live at -40 ºC. By raising their activity, the fox can live at -70ºC.

Due to their low TNZ, they have to be careful not to be active for too long, which can cause them to overheat. Animals like the Eastern long-eared bat have a thermal neutral zone of 36ºC. Below 25℃, the bats enter a state of torpor.
Torpor is described as suspended animation, which they use as they can no longer stop their body temperature from falling any lower.
Hibernation is a longer-term torpor used by bears, bats, and hedgehogs to solve the low seasonal temperatures.
How do Mammals Maintain Body Temperature?
To maintain their high metabolic rate and, in turn, keep their body temperatures, mammals require a lot of food. Compared to an amphibian or reptile, a mammal has to eat approximately ten times the amount of food to maintain its body temperature.
Oxygen
All mammals have evolved to require large amounts of oxygen. Oxygen is essential in maintaining a high metabolic rate.
When a mammal is at its basal metabolic rate, hardly using any energy requires less oxygen. Breathing is done by moving the thorax. Muscles and ribs help the thorax contract, drawing air into and out of the lungs.
When the animal is more active, however, the diaphragm is used to aid breathing. When contracted, the diaphragm increases the volume of the thorax cavity, increasing the air that gets into the lungs.
Blood Circulation
The heart of a mammal is divided into two sides, which is used to ensure that the oxygen that goes to the tissues is richer and increases the body’s blood pressure, creating a higher blood flow.
The blood from the left-hand side is sent to the lungs, releasing oxygen and carbon dioxide. This blood, freshly oxygenated, is then returned to the right-hand side of the heart.
The blood is pumped again, but this time to the body’s tissues, delivering oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Food
Mammals spend most of their lives eating and have evolved different ways of doing this. Mammals have particular teeth prepared for eating the type of food in their environment.
The teeth make biting, tearing, and chewing, making digestion more straightforward and faster.
Different types of mammals have evolved stomachs that are unique from others. Ungulates such as cows have a stomach that is divided into four sections. These make it easier to digest the massive amounts of plant material required to keep their high metabolic rate.
Some mammals do not use their teeth to eat. Anteaters use a sticky tongue to swallow ants whole. Some marine mammals use a row of teeth to eat fish.
Mammals can breathe and eat simultaneously using a bone that separates the airway from the nostrils and lungs to the mouth below.
I have written an article if you want more information on how a cow’s stomach works. You can find this here.
How do Young Mammals Keep Warm?
Endothermy works in mammals, but it can be problematic for young mammals. The larger a mammal is, the slower they lose heat. This is due to the higher surface area compared to volume. Consequently, the small the mammal, the faster they lose heat from their bodies.

Some ectotherms can be very small, and endotherms, such as mammals, cannot survive if they are too small.
Pregnant mothers must create an environment to protect the young from the temperatures outside their bodies. They need to control the temperature around them, providing all the nutrients the embryo needs.
In most mammals, the embryo is kept in the uterus until the young are ready to be born, allowing the baby to develop without regulating their temperature.
Once born some small mammals, such as mice, are born very small. The environments they are kept in once taken need to be provided by the mother. These can be in the form of a nest or burrow.
For other mammals, such as humans, whales, and large herbivores, the embryos are kept inside the mother’s body for much longer, giving them enough time to maintain their body temperature once born.
Want to know how deer keep warm in winter? They have some unique adaptations, which you can read here.
Evolution
Time
A constant body temperature for a mammal allows them to be always active. This gives them more time to hunt, feed, and attract mates over an extended period.
Most mammals do not need to hibernate through the winter, giving them extra life. Time can also be spent hunting and feeding throughout the night, not just the day.
A few species do hibernate, but these are generally small mammals that live in higher latitudes of the continent. Due to the increased activity, mammals can live on land, in rivers, lakes, swamps, seas, and oceans.
Integrated Activities
Most physical and chemical processes that a body goes through are temperature sensitive. Chemical reactions, contraction of the muscles, blood flow through vessels, and the diffusion rate of molecules all rely on the body being vulnerable to temperature.
Mammals are integrated systems consisting of these and many more processes linked to one another.
Temperature changes can break down these processes, causing the integrated systems to stop working. Mammals are more complex than ectotherms and have more integrated processes happening at one Time.
With the increased complexity comes a narrower change in body temperature that can be tolerated. A reptile would have a brain size one-tenth of a similar mammal.
When a mammal dies due to being too hot or too cold, the actual cause of death is due to a failure of a part of the brain’s function, whether heart failure or loss of respiration.
Maximum Aerobic Metabolic Rate (MAMR) (AKA – Why the hare would beat the tortoise in a race)
Endothermy allows mammals a higher level of sustainable activity. Mitochondria in the cells of the internal organs contribute to the basal metabolic rate and constant body temperature.
Mitochondria are also present in large numbers in the muscles of a mammal. Their role is to provide energy for the forces. They break down the glucose by oxidation.
This process allows them to provide the mechanical energy for the contraction of the muscles. By having many mitochondria in the muscles, the amounts of glucose can be increased, increasing the amount of energy.
The maximum aerobic metabolic rate (MAMR) is approximately ten times a reptile of the same weight. A mammal and a snake of the same weight can run at roughly the same speed.
However, the mammal can run for far longer. The reptile cannot provide extra glucose to the muscles and will run out of energy. The mammal can run further, using the power from its food, until they run out of glucose to be oxidized.
Although mammal is continuously using up their energy stores, they can constantly hunt, forage, fight, evade predators, find new food sources and search for mates.
Bryan Harding is a member of the American Society of Mammalogists and a member of the American Birding Association. Bryan is especially fond of mammals and has studied and worked with them around the world. Bryan serves as owner, writer, and publisher of North American Nature.