Question

Which creature would you expect to have the most narrow thermal tolerance (to be most

		The olm, a salamander that never leaves the cave environment
		The Prairie garter snake, which ranges from Texas to Canada and actively basks to thermoregulate.
		The lone star tick, a creature that is an ectoparasite, but spends most of its life off its host
		The wood frog, an inhabitant of forests, which actually freezes during the winter
		The marmot, a large Alpine rodent

Answer 1

Ans. The olm, a salamander that never leaves the cave environment.

Explaination: The temperature inside a cave is not fluctuationg much in winter as well as summer. Many animal species hibernate during winter to protect from cold in caves and many speices undergo aestivation to protect from extreme heat during summer. As a result of this, an animal that never leaves a cave has adapted physiologically to the almost constant temperature inside the cave and hence they have a narrow range of thermal tolerance. On the other hand, animal species which live in the open environment needs to face high summer temperature as well as low winter temperature and hence they have wide range of thermal tolerance.