Rising temperatures as a result of climate change will affect bird species differently, and their abilities to withstand extremely hot conditions depend on the part of the world that they find themselves in and the climatic region to which their physiology has become adapted over the course of millennia.
Birds such as pygmy kingfishers and collared sunbirds that are found in hot, humid climates can handle larger spikes in body temperature better than bird species flying about in hot deserts or cool mountains.
A University of Pretoria (UP) professor of zoology was part of a team that recently published a study that reveals that tiny hummingbirds living in the Andes Mountains in Peru drop their body temperature from 40°C to 3.3°C, near freezing point, to survive bitterly cold nights.
Wild spaces and the animals in them are disappearing at an alarming rate, according to the recent United Nations (UN) report on the extinction of species.
Prof Andrew McKechnie of the Department of Zoology and Entomology was recently awarded the South African Research Chair in Conservation Physiology.
While political leaders deny climate change, mass deaths of desert birds resulting from escalating temperatures are becoming a frequent occurrence.
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