[en] The effects of viscous heating on the stability of Taylor-Couette flow were investigated through flow visualization experiments for Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids. For highly viscous Newtonian fluids, viscous heating drives a transition to a new, oscillatory mode of instability at a critical Reynolds number significantly below that at which the inertial transition is observed in isothermal flows. The effects of viscous heating may explain the discrepancies between the observed and predicted critical conditions and the symmetry of the disturbance flow for viscoelastic instabilities. (c) 2000 The American Physical Society