Cuddling penguins lower body temperature

There is no reason that you would know this (and frankly I doubt you really want to), but I have a problem when women stay over. There are hot as hell, and they always want to cuddle and make me hot as hell too. I end up scooting over to one side of the bed to avoid the personal sweating lodge that develops. Then they get mad at me. You see where this is going...

Anyway, having read this study, I really wish that I could do what penguins do when they are huddled together: lower their metabolic rate to save energy and avoid overheating.

A team of scientists that had already shown that emperor penguins who are free ranging in their colony spend about 50 percent of their time in dense huddles and drop their average metabolic rate by 25 percent has questioned whether this drop is due to a process similar to hibernation. Entering into the colony with bulb thermometers, earlier investigators had indeed found that huddling penguins maintain a lower rectal temperature than birds which were isolated from the colony (35.7°C vs. 37.9°C, respectively). However, a sustained drop in deep body (core) temperature would be in direct conflict with the requirements for successful egg incubation. Therefore, energy savings accrued from huddling might rely on mechanisms other than a lower body temperature.

To better understand this mechanism, the researchers conducted the first recordings of deep body temperatures in free ranging birds throughout their breeding cycle by using long-term implanted data loggers. The researchers sought to assess whether male emperor penguins lower their deep body temperature during breeding and incubation. Additionally, using external devices during pairing and visual observations of implanted males during incubation, they sought to study deep body temperature variations when the birds were huddling.

...

The researchers have also found that the ambient temperature in a dense huddle increases up to 35°C. Yet there is no rise in the body temperature of these birds although the body temperature of individuals exposed to only 20°C in the laboratory goes up to 40-41°C. The team believes that a possible explanation for the constancy (or slight decrease) of core temperature inside the dense huddles, in contrast to the expected temperature rise, is the depression of metabolic rate.

...

This depression explains why the birds neither suffer from hyperthermia despite the very high ambient temperatures within the huddle, nor become hypothermic due to the harsh cold. (Emphasis mine.)

First, only in science can someone answer the question "What is your job?" with "Walking around in the Antarctic measuring Emperor penguins' rectal temperatures." That is just awesome. And I bet the birds were so willing to help make that job easier. Fortunately enough they can't run very fast, so you don't have to go tackle them in the snow.

Second, I am going to try and learn how to do this. If I could just lower my metabolic rate at night enough than I wouldn't be nearly so hot. Maybe tonight I am going to practice hibernating.

The findings are published in the American Journal of Physiology. The abstract is here.