Temperature effects on the theological properties of viscoelastic solutions containing entangled wormlike micelles of potassium oleate and hydrophobically modified polyacrylamide were studied in a wide range of polymer concentrations. A very pronounced drop of viscosity by four orders of magnitude was obseived at heating from 20 to 78 degrees C both in the presence and in the absence of polymer indicating that the wormlike micelles are mainly responsible for this effect. The highly thermosensitive behavior was attributed to the shortening of micellar chains induced by heating. Although the decrease in viscosity is almost the same for both surfactant and surfactant/polymer systems, the absolute values of the viscosity in the presence of polymer are by few orders of magnitude higher, which is due to the formation of a common network of entangled polymer and micellar chains. As a result, the added polymer allows one to get highly temperature responsive system that keeps viscoelastic properties in a much wider range of temperatures, which makes it very promising for various practical applications. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.