Re: CROCODYLOMORPH ENDOTHERMY

[Stan Friesen <swf@ElSegundoCA.ATTGIS.COM>]

[ A small note of explanation -- due to some scheduled maintenance of
  the Penn psychology building's electrical circuits, I had to reboot
  this machine this morning as I will have to again on Wednesday and
  Friday of this week.  I try to avoid rebooting, so it's been a while
  since I've done it.  Doing so this morning seems to have gotten some
  e-mail "unstuck" from the pipeline from here to the rest of the
  world.  I suspect that Stan just received a message that others of
  us received some time back, and that's why we're seeing his message
  now (see below).  My apologies for such irregularities, but the
  efforts I've put into circumventing them have resulted in little
  progress.  -- MR]

 From: Van and Kathy Smith <vksmith@ix.netcom.com>
vel 
 >   I have heard about endothermic fish for quite awhile, but have never
 > been given many details.  Are they like the hawk moth who generates
 > heat by exercising its massive wing muscles, but when not flying cools
 > down to ambient temperature 

No.  At least in the tuna the endothermy is accomplished by means of
special high-energy muscle tissue - the tasty brownish meat that
we are all familiar with. While this tissue is indeed associated
with locomotion, it generates heat even when the animal is "relaxed",
much as our own muscles do, by something akin to shivering.

swf@elsegundoca.attgis.com              sarima@netcom.com

The peace of God be with you.