Behavioral Thermoregulation

Gecksis adopt a variety of behaviors to both raise and lower their body temperature.

They can increase their body temperature by basking in the sun, especially standing on rocks. This has an extra advantage, as they may also absorb heat by conduction from the heated rocks that have stored radiant solar energy. Raising their head from their burrow in the morning and then exposing their entire body to the sun is another easy way to warm up.

To cool down, gecksis mostly look for shade and hide in their burrows. They use them to both cool down when it is too hot outside, but also to avoid being too cold when the sun goes down. Very occasionally, we have also observed them holding their feet up to cool down, which is quite funny.

Endotherms such as mammals can adopt all of the behaviors that ectotherms use. However, they can add metabolic heating, which ectotherms are not able to do.