calimac

So I'm reading this book, An Immense World by Ed Yong (Random House, 2022), about animal senses, some of which are very different from our own. (But what kind of book about animals says virtually nothing about cats?) And this chapter concerns the sense of temperature, and this section is discussing animals which live under extreme temperatures.

When scientists study these so-called extremophiles, they tend to focus on adaptations like heat-reflecting hairs in their bodies or self-made antifreeze in their blood. But such adaptations would be useless if an animal's sensory system were constantly screaming it it, triggering feelings of pain. If you want to live in the Sahara, or at the bottom of the ocean, or on a glacier, you'd better tweak your sense to like it.
This concept is intuitive, and yet when we watch extremophiles, from emperor penguins braving the Antarctic chill to camels trekking over scorching sands, it's easy to think that they are suffering throughout their lives. We admire them not just for their physiological resilience but also for their psychological fortitude. We project our senses onto theirs and assume that they'd be in discomfort because we'd be in discomfort. But their sense are tuned to the temperatures in which they live. A camel likely isn't distressed by the baking sun, and penguins probably don't mind huddling through an Antarctic storm. Let the storm rage on. The cold doesn't bother them anyway.

I hope I don't have to ...

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ysabetwordsmith

It's a simple premise to check. Is the animal out doing its business in whatever the weather is? Then it's probably content with the conditions. Because if it's not, then it would be seeking shelter or doing some other thing to relieve the discomfort. Many animals deal with harsh conditions by burrowing, hibernating, etc. And then there are bison playing in the snow while the beef cattle are frozen stiff.

One time we went to a zoo on a snow day. Many of the animals had retreated into their hideaways. The wolves were curled up under a layer of snow. The Siberian tigers, polar bears, etc. were all "YAAAAYYY SNOW!" and romping around in it. :D It was very easy to see who liked a chilly day with light snow, and who hated it.