Question

Animals lose heat through the surface areas of their skin. A small animal, such as a mouse, uses a much larger proportion of its energy to keep warm than does a large animal, such as an elephant. Why is the rate of heat loss per unit area greater in a small animal than a large one

Answer 1

Answer:

because  mouse (small animal) has large surface area to volume ratio  compare to Elephants.(large animal).

Explanation:

Generally the larger the body volume of an organism, the higher the amount of internal  heat generated, however the larger the mass of the organism, the lower the surface area available to dissipate the generated heat.

Thus the greater the surface area to volume ratio available to  an organism in its environment, the larger the quantity of internal  heat to be dissipated in proportion  to its volume.

Development in larger mass animals increases the  body volume cavity faster than the surface area, thus large animals have low surface area to volume ratio.Thus little surface area is available to dissipate heat to the surroundings. The rate of increase in body volume in  smaller animals is lower than the  surface areas.Therefore small animals has large surface areas to volume ratio, thus they lose large amount of heat  due to larger surface area available for heat dissipation.

Thus mouse with smaller mass,  but high surface areas to volume ratio lose more heat than Elephant of larger body but  with low surface  area-volume ratio,.

Answer 2

Answer:

Because of the difference in surface area to volume ratio

Explanation:

Surface are to volume ratio is the area of an object that is exposed to the external environment (surface area), compared to the amount within an object (volume).

Therefore an elephant has a lower surface area to volume ratio than a mouse.

The smaller an object is the greater its surface area to volume ratio.

Small animals have much more surface area per mass than large animals. With so much surface area, they lose heat very quickly. So, a mouse, with a lot of surface area per mass, must spend a lot more energy to stay warm than a large animal.