Well, I think "warm-blooded" is a little misleading. When I think "warm-blooded", I think of an organism that maintains homeothermy -- I'm at 98.6 whether it's 110 degrees out, or 60 degrees out.
It's closer to being a mesotherm, like tuna, which heats up parts of its body when it wants to go hunting. But the difference is that the opah KEEPS itself heated up at all times, and even more importantly: it keeps its whole body warmed up, rather than just the muscles that would be useful for the job at hand.
But it doesn't keep itself warmed up to a constant temperature: it keeps itself at "a bit warmer than the surrounding water".
Which might be even niftier. It's not a warm-blooded fish: it's an entirely new pattern of thermoregulation we haven't seen before.
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It's closer to being a mesotherm, like tuna, which heats up parts of its body when it wants to go hunting. But the difference is that the opah KEEPS itself heated up at all times, and even more importantly: it keeps its whole body warmed up, rather than just the muscles that would be useful for the job at hand.
But it doesn't keep itself warmed up to a constant temperature: it keeps itself at "a bit warmer than the surrounding water".
Which might be even niftier. It's not a warm-blooded fish: it's an entirely new pattern of thermoregulation we haven't seen before.
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