SUMMARY The Frank–Starling law of the heart applies to all classes of vertebrates. It
describes how stretch of cardiac muscle, up to an optimum length, increases contractility …

Early cardiac development involves the formation of a heart tube, looping of the tube and
formation of chambers. These processes are highly similar among all vertebrates, which …

Body mass, length, oxygen consumption (M˙ o 2) and heart rate (f H) were measured in
“embryos”(prior to hatching),“larvae”(days 10–20),“juveniles”(days 30–70 in 10-day …

European Neandertals employed a complex set of physiological cold defenses, homologous
to those seen in contemporary humans and nonhuman primates. While Neandertal …

The sensing and processing of hypoxic signals, the responses to these signals and the
modulation of these responses by other physical and physiological factors are an immense …

With approximately 7000 species, snakes and lizards, collectively known as squamates, are
by far the most species‐rich group of reptiles. It was from reptile‐like ancestors that …

Resting and maximal heart rates (HR) in ectothermic vertebrates are generally lower than
those in endotherms and vary by more than an order of magnitude interspecifically. Variation …

The endothermic state of mammals and birds requires high heart rates to accommodate the
high rates of oxygen consumption. These high heart rates are driven by very similar …

Since the first volume of The Biology of Sea Turtles was published in 1997, the field has
grown and matured in ways few of the authors would have predicted—particularly in the …

Goldfish has been used as an unconventional model organism to study a number of
biological processes. For example, goldfish is a well-characterized and widely used model …