[coriolisIB] Scientists have discovered the first fully warm-blooded fish

Roberto Espinosa bobbyespinosa@gmail.com [coriolisIB]

mayo14 a las 1:23 P.M.

ParacoriolisIB@yahoogroups.com

La ciencia sigue siendo una religin, todo basado en la fe...hasta que

Scientists have discovered the first fully warm-blooded fish

By Chelsea Harvey May 14 at 1:59 PM

Image downloaded from Flickr NOAA Fisheries West Coast, Opah captured during long
line surveys by the Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

Its one of the most basic biology facts were taught in school growing up: Birds and
mammals are warm-blooded, while reptiles, amphibians and fish are cold-blooded. But
new research is turning this well-known knowledge on its head with the discovery of the
worlds first warm-blooded fish the opah.

In a paper published today in Science, researchers from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) describe the unique mechanism that enables
theopah, a deep water predatory fish, to keep its body warm. The secret lies in a
specially designed set of blood vessels in the fishs gills, which allows the fish to circle
warm blood throughout its entire body.

Scientists already suspected the opah was special, says Heidi Dewar, a researcher at
NOAAs Southwest Fisheries Science Center and one of the papers authors. Most fish who
live where the opah does that is, hundreds of feet deep, in some of the oceans
darkest and coldest places are sluggish, thanks to the low temperatures. At these
depths, even predatory fish tend to be slow-moving, waiting patiently for prey to come
by rather than actively chasing it down. But the opah, which spends all its time in these
deep places, has many features usually associated with a quick-moving, active
predator, such as a large heart, lots of muscle and big eyes. These characteristics made
the opah a curiosity, Dewar says.

The opahs secret first started to come out when NOAA researcher and lead author Nicholas
Wegner looked at a gill sample and noticed something intriguing.

All fish have two kinds of blood vessels in their gills: vessels carrying blood in from
the body to pick up oxygen, and other vessels carrying oxygenated blood back out
again. In the opah, the incoming blood is warm after circulating through the fishs
body.This is because the opah swims by quickly flapping its pectoral fins, rather than
undulating its body like many other fish do, to propel itself through the water a
process that generates high heat. But outgoing blood, which has just been in contact
with water in the gills, is cold. Wegner noticed that in the opahs gills, the two sets of
vessels are tightly bundled against each other, so that the incoming blood vessels can
warm up the outgoing blood before it goes anywhere else. This set-up, known as
counter-current heat exchange, allows warm blood to be delivered throughout the
body.

Some other types of fish, such as tuna, have similarly designed blood vessels in certain
parts of their bodies, allowing for regional endothermy warm-bloodedness thats
limited to certain organs or muscles, such as the eyes, liver or swimming muscles. But
the opah is the only fish scientists know of that has this design in its gills, where most
fish lose the majority of their body heat to the surrounding cold water. By warming up
the blood in the gills before it goes anywhere else, the opah achieves not just regional
endothermy, but whole-body endothermy. Testing showed that the opah is able to
maintain a body temperature about 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding
water.

Being warm-blooded gives the opah a major competitive advantage. Even fish with
regional endothermy usually cant keep their heart warm. If your hearts cold, theres
only so much you can do, Dewar says. It doesnt matter how much your muscles will
perform, if your heart cant deliver the oxygen and nutrients, your muscles can only
do so much. This means fish like tuna must constantly make trips back to the surface
to warm up if they dont want to slow down.

The opah, on the other hand, can spend all its time in the deep waters without losing its
edge. And being warm-blooded in such cold temperatures means its eyesight and muscle
performance is sharper than its sluggish, cold-blooded cousins. The preys at a complete
disadvantage, Dewar says.

While only one species of opah is currently recognized Lamprisguttatus scientists

are starting to believe that they should actually divide the opah into several different
species based on genetic variations in different populations around the world,
according to Dewar. The opah in this study were found off the West Coast of North
America, so the next step will be to start sampling opah in other parts of the world to see if
they all have the same specialized gills, Dewar says.

Down the road, future studies could also examine other related types of fish to try and
figure out how and when those special gills evolved. Its possible that other deep-water
species have similar adaptations.

For now, though, the opah enjoys the spotlight as the worlds first and, so far, only
warm-blooded fish. I think that its really exciting that we spend so much time studying
especially these larger fish to find something thats completely unique and has never been
seen before in any fish, Dewar says. Weve been very excited about it.

though it does represent an important commercial component of bycatch. In Hawaiian

longline fisheries, it is generally caught on deep sets targeting big-eye tuna.
___Lamprisguttatus is a large discoid and deeply keeled fish with an attractive form and a
conspicuous coloration. They usually reach a maximum length of 2 m (6.6 ft) and a
maximum weight of 270 kg (600 lb). The body is a deep steely blue grading to rosy on the
belly, with white spots in irregular rows covering the flanks. Both the median and paired
fins are a bright vermillion. Jaws are vermillion, too. The large eyes.Lamprisguttatus has a
worldwide distribution, from the Grand Banks to Argentina in the Western Atlantic, from
Norway and Greenland to Senegal and south to Angola (also in the Mediterranean) in the
Eastern Atlantic, from the Gulf of Alaska to southern California in the Eastern Pacific, in
temperate waters of the Indian Ocean, and rare forays into the Southern Ocean.[1]

This species is presumed to live out their entire lives in the open ocean, at mesopelagic
depths of 50500 m (1601600 ft), with possible forays into the bathypelagic zone.
Typically, it is found within water at 8 to 22 .

Their location was found to be related to a temporal scale, inhabiting depths of 50100 m
during the night and 100400 m during the day.They are apparently solitary, but are known
to school with tuna and other scombrids. They propel themselves by a lift-based mode of
swimming, that is, by flapping their pectoral fins. This, together with their forked caudal
fins and depressible median fins, indicates they swim at constantly high speeds. Squid and
krill make up the bulk of their diet; small fish are also taken.

They probably spawn in the spring. Its speeds have found to be more than 25 cm/s, and on
one occasion one was witnessed to have a burst of speed of 4 m/s.[2]

Based on those caught off the Hawaiian coast, the diet of L. guttatus appears to be a squid-
based.