Inspired by this thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=351460 and some winter time musings. You often hear of someone dying of exposure in cold weather. But all sorts of animals are constantly in all types of extreme weather.
Are we (humans) more vulnerable to cold, or is it just the shock of spending your normal life at 70+ degrees, then suddenly being plunged into the cold without time to aclimate?
-rainy
Go look at your dog or cat. See that stuff all over his body? It’s caleld fur, and it’s a pretty damn good insulator (that’s why some of the warmest clothes are made from animal fur.) Humans, on the other hand, have no fur, and just a wee bit of hair (in comparison) covering mostly just our heads, though we do have a little on the rest of our body.
In addition, several animals that do thrive in cold weather also have either a permanent layer of fat, or gain a layer for the winter. This helps keep their core temperatures up as well.
So yes, humans are MUCH more vunerable to the cold. But then, how well would a polar bear do in the tropics? Animals evovled to best suit the climtes they came from, and the evidence seems to say that we evolved in parts of Africa that are quite warm.
Not only the above, but haven’t you ever seen a dog or cat walk around in the snow like it is beach sand? Those are bare feet and they don’t seem to mind. Try that yourself sometime. Their feet are fundamentally different than ours. Also, dogs such as retievers will happily jump into really cold water without a second thought. Most of those animals seem to be immune to the temperature shock that humans experience at only moderate temperatures.
You do always hear the local weather news casters talk about bringing animals inside (pets, and I assume they are refering to sometimes in / somethimes out pets) when they first really hard freeze night hits. This lead to wonder about the aclimation thing.
So would a lion snatched off the savannah in Africa and flown to Midwestern US in midwinter likely suffer the same fate as us hairless monkeys, or would he be equally at home as say a lion from the New York zoo?
When you read stories of “feral children”, there’s always a comment about their indifference to cold.
I think our intolerence of cold is partly due to the lack of fur and partly because we know we can do something about it. Animals just deal with it, we go get a coat…
Cecil mentions (in passing) animals’ indifference to temperature as well, in the column on Has a human child ever been raised by wolves or other animals?:
(Emphasis, ellipses, etc., added.)
As a general rule, humans are warm-adapted animals*. That is to say, our evolutionary lineage (before the time we started wearing clothes) links us to a relatively warm environment. But there are plenty of other warm adapted mammals that would not (and do not) survive in cold climates. And that doesn’t even touch on the cold blooded animals. Keep in mind, though, that many species of mammals have either subspecies or closely related species that **have **become cold adapted over time. Consider the primate genus of macaques (Macaca). There are macaques living in Africa that wouldn’t survive in Japan, but there are cold-adapted macaques living in Japan (a different species).
If humans were not intelligent enough to use animal skins as clothing and to control fire, we would likely have a) stayed in warmer climates or b) split into different species as some populations migrated north (and became furrier), much like the Japanese macaques. As it is, Homo sapiens adapted in a differnt, uniquely human way by using our brains to allow us to live in colder climates. Neanderthals evoloved into a different species, not so much bacause they lived in northorn climates, but because they remained genetically isolated for such a long time (>500,00 years). Our own species has never been genetically isolated for a comparable time period.
*with the possible exception of some northern populations, like the Inuit. But even they cannot survive in Arctic conditions without clothing and fire.
Spartydog wears a fur coat 24/7/365. I’m always suprised when I see my buddies wearing their expensive Orvis coats in [human] cold weather. Their owners are clueless. (My buddies complain to no end.)
If I could talk I would ask my master to shave me during the summer. I can’t sweat to keep me cool and I don’t see any of these clueless humans wearing a fur coat in the summer but I am stuck with it. I try to shed my fur but that doesn’t work too well.
Humans claim to have superior brains but they are really stupid sometimes. If they would only pay attention they would see that I am much more active in the [human] cold and feel really lethargic when the weather gets hot.
Ah well, it’s a dog’s life.
Yeah, lots of furry animals (especially dogs such as my German Shepherd) tend to get extra fur during the winter. This is why during the spring and summer you’re supposed to brush the dog. It not only feels good for the dog (like getting your back scratched) but it also removes the extra shed fur that is all caught up with the dog’s regular fur. I spent several hours brushing my dog one time to discover that she had apparantly shrunk to half her previous size just by having the extra bulk of her winter fur brushed out.
I’ve also heard that when filming The Hobbit, Peter Jackson would regularly be seen running around a snowy mountain top in shorts and a hawiian shirt with no shoes and apparantly not suffering from it (of course, all reports I’ve heard were that he was running around, not just standing there)
When I go camping during the winter, I walk around in a t-shirt, sweater, and jacket (and of course pants and boots) but once I start chopping wood, I strip down to either the sweater or just the t-shirt (and pants and boots) because otherwise it’s uncomfortably warm (in subzero temperatures).
Live by the old saying:
“He who chops his own wood heats himself twice.”
It is sooooo true.
All animals have a range of temperatures they can live in if they have enough food. Humans temperature range is the widest known for any species, ranging from around –15oC through to over 80oC, but it’s also extremely high. We are without a doubt tropical animals. Our survival range is isn’t greatly lower than many other tropical animal species despite our lack of hair. In contrast most of the animal people are used to dealing with a temperate species like wolves. These animals don’t tolerate anything like the same range but they can survive at much lower temperatures.
The other confusing factor is operational range. Humans can operate in the sense that we can run, hunt, gather fruit and so forth across our entire survival range. In contrast most other species can survive temperatures that they couldn’t possibly operate in. A wolf will survive temperatures in excess of 40oC for example, but they could never operate effectively there. In the same way many tropical animals will survive in zoos in cold climates but they couldn’t survive without someone handing them food.
So in short humans are less cold tolerant than most animals we associate with because most of our domestic animals are temperate species whereas we are tropical. But we are by no means the least cold tolerant of mammal species.
He produced a movie version of “The Hobbit”? When did that happen?
No, I think Raguleader was saying that Peter Jackson is a hobbit, thus his invulnerability to cold and snow…
What?
Stranger
I see, it was a misplaced comma.
“I’ve also heard that, when filming, the Hobbit Peter Jackson would regularly be seen running around a snowy mountain top in shorts and a hawiian shirt with no shoes”
Makes perfect sense. Old Bilbo might have worn waistcoats and no shoes, but a modern hip Hobbit would of course wear hawaiian shirts and no shoes.
Yaknow, you joke about him being a hobbit, but I think it’s on one of the Return of the King DVDs, it has a thing with Elija Wood insisting that Peter Jackson had to be some kind of hobbit.
Moderately cold weather will send a lizard into a torpor, which is how we defeated the dinosaurs.
A bake-off or arm wrestle would have been much more civilised.
Flies in a cool room amused me as a kid. Positively languid. They become easy prey for a rolled up newspaper.
A bake-off or arm wrestle would have been much more civilised.
Flies in a cool room amused me as a kid. Positively languid. They become easy prey for a rolled up newspaper.
Wow, thanks for the thorough answer!
Jackson is way too thick to be a hobbit, half-dwarf maybe.
It was war. A bake-off would’ve given them a heat source and the key to our defeat.
Have you seen any promotional pictures for King Kong? Jackson has lost quite a bit of weight (although he didn’t grow any taller).