Good Question?
Me and a friend were taking our lunch break last night and got on the topic of Spring Gobbler season coming in soon. I got to wondering how do turkey's keep from getting their feet frost bit in extreme cold weather?[?]
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The weather gods were particularly punitive this winter. With a heavy hand, they sentenced Calgary with its third coldest winter in recorded history, accompanied by heavy snowfall. Vancouver was not spared the (white) rod either, being hit by its biggest snowstorm in 75 years. It's been so cold in western Canada, that livestock and wildlife are threatened.
Our warm-blooded birds who don't fly south for the winter however, have a way of defying this cruel predicament. We know their feathers keep their bodies warm, but they also have a unique way to keep their uncovered feet from freezing up - a remarkable feat when you think of our seagulls and ducks who happily stand around our windy and often icy shorelines with temperatures as cold as -40 degrees celsius.
Hot blood flows down the artery and warms up cold blood going up the vein via the rete mirabile.
These birds have a network of arteries and veins called a rete mirabile. When hot blood comes down to their feet through the arteries, the heat from the blood is transferred to the cold blood going up through its veins in a countercurrent mechanism.
"The heat in the blood is exchanged over from the hot artery into the cool vein, so the heat is not lost from the bird," explains Bob Montgomerie, a biology professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. "It actually comes back into the bird."
The bird's leg is kept colder as it gets lower to prevent less heat loss.
This system enables the birds from losing all their body heat through their feet, and keeps them just warm enough so they don't freeze, an ability we unfortunately don't share with our feathered friends.
In the human body, when hot blood is pumped away from the heart toward our feet, the heat is lost to the environment. The upward flowing veins are too far from the arteries to share the heat. Put simply, we don't have a rete mirabile.
But that doesn't mean we can't apply this ingenious system to our homes. Our heating ducts work the same way to keep our houses warm and prevent heat loss. We can even control the temperature in the same way the birds can regulate the heat in their feet by increasing or decreasing arterial or vein blood flow.
Our birds have outsmarted our meteorological masters.0 -
I know it has nothing to do with the question, (which looks like has
been well answered anyway), but i used to know a guy that had a
super cool photo of some roosted wild turkies.
It was during a bad rain/thunder storm and was before daybreak. It
was a tom with a hen on each side of him, and he had a wing over
each en, shielding them from the hard rain...and you could see the
hard rain and lightening in the background.
Haven't seen him in years, but would like to have a copy of that
photo.0 -
quote:Originally posted by watrulookinat
The weather gods were particularly punitive this winter. With a heavy hand, they sentenced Calgary with its third coldest winter in recorded history, accompanied by heavy snowfall. Vancouver was not spared the (white) rod either, being hit by its biggest snowstorm in 75 years. It's been so cold in western Canada, that livestock and wildlife are threatened.
Our warm-blooded birds who don't fly south for the winter however, have a way of defying this cruel predicament. We know their feathers keep their bodies warm, but they also have a unique way to keep their uncovered feet from freezing up - a remarkable feat when you think of our seagulls and ducks who happily stand around our windy and often icy shorelines with temperatures as cold as -40 degrees celsius.
Hot blood flows down the artery and warms up cold blood going up the vein via the rete mirabile.
These birds have a network of arteries and veins called a rete mirabile. When hot blood comes down to their feet through the arteries, the heat from the blood is transferred to the cold blood going up through its veins in a countercurrent mechanism.
"The heat in the blood is exchanged over from the hot artery into the cool vein, so the heat is not lost from the bird," explains Bob Montgomerie, a biology professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. "It actually comes back into the bird."
The bird's leg is kept colder as it gets lower to prevent less heat loss.
This system enables the birds from losing all their body heat through their feet, and keeps them just warm enough so they don't freeze, an ability we unfortunately don't share with our feathered friends.
In the human body, when hot blood is pumped away from the heart toward our feet, the heat is lost to the environment. The upward flowing veins are too far from the arteries to share the heat. Put simply, we don't have a rete mirabile.
But that doesn't mean we can't apply this ingenious system to our homes. Our heating ducts work the same way to keep our houses warm and prevent heat loss. We can even control the temperature in the same way the birds can regulate the heat in their feet by increasing or decreasing arterial or vein blood flow.
Our birds have outsmarted our meteorological masters.
in laymans terms, they stand there and poop on their feet[:)]0 -
^^^[:D] I just Googled it and this was what I found. 0 -
The same question came to my mind the other morning when the thermometer in my truck said -4 degrees F and I saw a crow on a guardrail.
How does that crow keep his feet warm?
The answer that came to my mind was different, and more satisfying though.
Magic.0 -
That was a great explanation I appreciate it. Also thanks Spryor for sharing your post, I would love to see that. 0 -
Whatru pretty much got it. Lowered temperature in the feet, and when it is really cold they sit on the, either one at a time or both at once. Tucked up under all that down they tend to stay fairly toasty.
When you see flamingos standing on one foot, they are simply reducing heat loss.0
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