Scientists Discover First Warm-Blooded Fish

sciencehabit writes: The opah lives in the dark, chilly depths of the world's oceans, using heated blood to keep warm. It's the first fish found to be fully warm-blooded. Certain sharks and tuna can warm regions of their body such as swimming muscles and the brain but must return to the surface to protect vital organs from the effects of the cold. The opah on the other hand, generates heat from its pectoral muscles, and conserves that warmth thanks to body fat and the special structure of its gills. “It’s a remarkable adaptation for a fish,” says Diego Bernal, a fish physiologist at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Comments

Are they Huuuge Pectoral Muscles?

[Culture20]

Would they make Ren Hoeck envious?

Re:Are they Huuuge Pectoral Muscles?

[Khyber]

No, it's more likely those with current mod points were born in the late 90s and thus totally clueless about the awesomeness of Ren & Stimpy.

Survival Adaption

[Irate Engineer]

Warm bloodedness is a survival adaption owing to human's adversion to warm sushi. I bet these fry up wonderfully though.

Re:Survival Adaption

[JimSadler]

Humans fry up pretty well. Humans are much like pork. And we don't have to scour the ocean depths to snag humans. Sadly most of my neighbors are simply too old to make a decent meal so when hard times come i'll have to get out of my neighborhood to find a young tenderonni.

Re:Survival Adaption

[Irate Engineer]

Well played sir, well played.

Re:Survival Adaption

[penguinoid]

Warm bloodedness is a survival adaption owing to human's adversion to warm sushi.

Tell that to the tuna (who are a sushi favorite, and partially warm-blooded).

Re:the news... wow...

[serviscope_minor]

Let me know when your scientists discover Tuna.

The inability to even read the second line of the summary... wow...

But then again idiots banging out a rapid reply based on a partial reading of the headline only certainly ISN'T news here.

Oprah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who first read it as Oprah and imagined this fish conducting a deep-sea talk show?

Re:Oprah?

[ChrisMaple]

I also read it as Oprah, and when I looked at the article I saw a bloated monstrosity. Yep, Oprah.

Not True

[Capt James McCarthy]

Aquaman is a warm blooded fish.

Re:Not True

[coughfeeman]

I heard Kanye West is a hot-blooded gay fish.

Tetrapods

[morgauxo]

Is it possible then that the ancestors of the first tetrapods had dormant genes for being warm blooded even before they walked up onto the land?

Re:Tetrapods

[Solandri]

Water conducts heat away about 25x faster than air, and the heat transfer rate is proportional to temperature differential. Until the organism gets to a very large size or develops some serious insulation, trying to maintain a constant body temperature underwater is a lost cause.

TFA describees an adaptation for minimizing loss of internal heat to the water (counter-current heat exchange of blood entering/leaving the gills). An adaptation that AFAIK no land animals has, though I have heard of some animals having it in their extremities (blood leaving their core to the extremities exchanges heat with blood returning from the extremities, thus preserving internal body heat. I'd be curious if birds which fly really high (upwards of 30,000 ft) have it in their lungs, or if the energy consumption needed to fly at those altitudes is sufficient to offset any heat loss.

It's also a bit of a stretch to call this warm bloodedness. It's not thermal homeostasis, the process that keeps your internal body temperature at 37 C regardless of environmental conditions.

Re: Red Lobster

[Anonymous Coward]

They are quite tasty and there are a lot of different cuts in this fish, at least one of which is "similar" to beef. I guess this explains that. I dont think there are a lot of these guys out there and are generally not a targeted species, but I 've seen it on the menu at a number of smaller establishments. It's usually a special catch though, and typically the more tuna-like cuts.

I discovered this fish years ago and am doing my best to control the population.

Re:What's next?

[Mr D from 63]

A fish blooded worm.

But how does it taste?

[who_stole_my_kidneys]

Seriously ?