mesotherm
English edit
Etymology edit
Noun edit
mesotherm (plural mesotherms)
- (zoology) An animal that adjusts its body to a metabolically favourable temperature using a context-dependent balance of internal metabolically-produced heat and external-environmentally derived heat.
- 2016 January 16, “Gigantism and Its Implications for the History of Life”, in PLOS ONE[1], :
- The large terrestrial and marine reptiles of the Mesozoic were likely mesotherms, which maintained high body temperatures by virtue of their large size and whose metabolism approached that of endotherms.