You know you’ve passed the point of no return in fandom when you send a message to your best friend that starts with the phrase “THIS IS WHY VULCANS HAVING LOWER BODY TEMPERATURES THAN HUMANS IS BULLSHIT” followed by an ecological analysis of why Vulcans should have higher body temperatures than humans.
#but why should vulcans have hotter body temperatures
The general pattern in nature is that diurnal mammals have body temperatures just above average daily environmental temperature.
It requires a ton of energy to keep a body cooler than its surroundings with all the motion and physical exertion they perform. It’s also bad for their bodies to be cooler, because this would mean the enzymes in their body function at an optimal temperature cooler than the environment, so it would be dangerous for them to be an environment outside of the optimum range if their internal cooling mechanisms somehow messed up.
We’ve seen Vulcans sweat like humans (the primary way humans cool themselves) and they would have to sweat A LOT to maintain lower than human body temperature on a desert planet where they can’t really afford to use up that much water.
Really the main thing is that, following observed patterns, Vulcans should have a body temperature slightly above the average temperatures of Vulcan, which is said to be hotter than Earth, so they should be hotter than humans!
Hope that helped :)