Thermal Windows?!

A few days ago (Thursday, April 12th, 2018) I was reading this study where researchers investigated how elephants regulate their temperature using thermal cameras. They took photoraphs with thermal cameras of six elephants in a zoo throughout the day. I loved the study, mostly because I just loved the pictures! The thermal camera translates heat into color. Places reflecting a lot of heat towards the camera look different from places that are insulated or cold, where much less eat is coming towareds the camera at all.

Something I found so interesting while looking at the pictures from this study is based on a conception that I had. When I heard that elephants use their ears to help regulate their body temperature by sending blood to them, I "just" assumed it was the whole ear. Not so, accoridng to these photographs. The blood vessels in their ears radiate out in certain ways so as to create pretty descrete boundaries within the ears.

When they're hot, elephants send blood to these areas in their ears. The surface area of their ears helps to put the blood closer to the air and helps to allow for heat to move from their body to the air. There are discrete areas of the ears defined by blood vessels that the elephants send warm blood to to cool off. The researchers refer to these areas as "thermal windows." In other parts of the body, these windows do not often reoccur in the same spots. However, in the ears, the researchers found that, based on their photographs and analysis, the thermal windows were pretty contstant!

If the air is as hot as their body, I wonder what elephants do — flap their ears? Cover themselves in cooler water or mud? Stand in the shade?

I love the idea of thermal windows — little patches of skin defined by blood vessel paths which heat up