mesotherm

English

Etymology

meso- +‎ -therm

Noun

mesotherm (plural mesotherms)

  1. (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, DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0146092:
      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.

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