Wiktionary
a. of, or relating to an ectotherm; cold-blooded
WordNet
adj. of animals except birds and mammals; having body temperature that varies with the environment [syn: poikilothermic, poikilothermous, heterothermic]
Usage examples of "ectothermic".
Chiefly, that by generating your own energy you, the animal, have a higher rate of metabolism and so can be more active for longer periods than ectothermic animals, which need prolonged periods of warming up in the sun.
This implies the kind of prolonged activity seen in endothermic mammals and birds, rather than ectothermic lizards and turtles.
Because endothermic predators must eat about ten times as much food per week as ectothermic predators of the same size, a given population of prey animals will support different numbers of endothermic than of ectothermic carnivores.
Mad dogs and Englishmen may go out in the midday sun, but an ectothermic animal has trouble coping with its rise in body temperature.
The naked mole bird, however, is homeothermic, ectothermic, and tachymetabolic.