Morphological Aspects and the Ecological and Mechanical Consequences of Fat Deposition in Wild Vertebrates

Abstract

Interstitial and depot fat is by far most variable constituent of body and one most clearly related to nutrition (148). Fatty tissue can amount to half or more of live weight of animal (173, 269, 304) or can be so reduced as to be undissectible; this feature of so impressed 18th century anatomist John Hunter that he regarded fat as animal substance because the animal is same with as without it [kited in (214)]. It is now universally accepted that much (but not all) body fat serves as an energy reserve, but its other functions and consequences of its presence on anatomy and physiology of whole animal have not been of critical review since work of Shattock (247) and Auerbach (10). As long ago as 1940, Wells (294) described anatomy of adipose tissue as a neglected subject in humans and in other animals. Statements made in elementary texts (78, 201, 248, 288) are extremely brief; they stress aspects that are in fact of minor importance in many species-e.g. role of fat in thermoregulation. Indeed, 20th Century opinion on is well summarized by Langebartel (157), who devoted one of 510 pages of his standard textbook of veterinary anatomy to adipose tissue and concluded that little more seems necessary to be said about subject. Comparative anatomists have long treated with suspicion; most recent systematic attempt to apply concept of homology to fat masses across classes and orders of vertebrates was that of Butler (49). Many anatomy texts do not mention at all (103, 135, 137); others dismiss very briefly (201, 214) or refer only to biochemical aspects of tissue (78, 248).