Meeting Abstract
The thermoregulatory paradigm for reptiles is that they maintain some control over body temperature behaviourally through basking, shuttling between cool and hot microclimates and via changes in posture and position. Coupled with these behaviours are physiological mechanisms that facilitate thermoregulation, including cardiovascular control of heating and cooling rates. However reptiles have also been shown to maintain performance through thermal independence of physiological processes and by thermal plasticity (acclimation/acclimatisation) and so have a suite of mechanisms to deal with changing environmental temperatures. Using body temperature data from a long term (> 10 years) field study on free-ranging estuarine crocodiles the thermoregulatory paradigm of reptiles is being further elucidated and unravelled.
