Elephants Better Beat the Heat--or Else

This is Scientific American 60-Second Science. I'm Sophie Bushwick. Got a minute?
When summer hits, I dread jogging outside.
But a study finds that elephants can be in true danger in the heat.
As creatures get bigger, they have smaller surface-area-to-body-volume ratios.
Fully grown Asian elephants thus pack a lot of mass into a body with a relatively small surface area.
And surface area limits how much body heat you can dissipate.
For the study, two female elephants in the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans walked around a half-mile track under various conditions.
The outdoor temperature during these sessions ranged from a chilly 8 degrees Celsius to a scorching 35 degrees.
Sunny, hot days were the worst.
The already limited hide is now itself heated by the sun.
With the equivalent of a busted radiator, the elephants retained 56 to 100 percent of their body heat internally.
Which could make a mere four hours of exercise fatal.
The research on elephant exertion is in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Fortunately, elephants have ways to beat the heat:
shift activity to after dark and, of course, go for a dip.
Thanks for the minute, for Scientific American 60-Second Science. I'm Sophie Bushwic.