Living on the edge: Daily, seasonal and annual body temperature patterns of Arabian oryx in Saudi Arabia

Arabian oryx exhibit adaptive heterothermy, allowing their body temperature to fluctuate with environmental conditions to conserve water in arid environments. Surprisingly, this adaptive behavior was more pronounced at Mahazat as-Sayd (MS) than at Uruq Bani Ma'arid (UBM), despite MS having lower temperatures and higher rainfall. The study used implanted data loggers to measure body temperature continuously for a year, revealing that heterothermy is influenced not only by extrinsic factors like environmental temperature and water availability but also by intrinsic factors such as sex and behavior. Heterothermy was most pronounced during summer, with minor sex differences possibly linked to reproductive investment.

Streicher, S., Lutermann, H., Bennett, N. C., Bertelsen, M. F., Mohammed, O. B., Manger, P. R., Scantlebury, M., Ismael, K., & Alagaili, A. N. (2017). Living on the edge: Daily, seasonal and annual body temperature patterns of Arabian oryx in Saudi Arabia. Plos One, 12(8), e0180269. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0180269