Caecal function provides the energy of fermentation without liberating heat in the poikilothermic mammal,Heterocephalus glaber

✍ Scribed by Shlomo Yahav; Rochelle Buffenstein

• Book ID: 104738529
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 307 KB
• Volume: 162
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0174-1578
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00357526

✦ Synopsis

This paper presents the first report of a mammalian internal organ with a lower temperature than its abdominal surrounds. Heterocephalus glaber, the naked mole-rat, is a poikilothermic mammal that leads a strictly subterranean existence and consumes a high proportion of fibre in its diet. The fermentation chamber in these animals appears to absorb rather than generate heat and the temperature in it was consistently 1.2+ 0.5 ~ (n= 17) lower than rectal temperature. A caecum with a lower temperature than its abdominal surrounds provides an internal heat sink which could be advantageous for metabolic heat dissipation in the plugged humid burrows in which the naked mole-rat permanently resides.