Talk:Tuna

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"Tuna" is also American english slang (negative conotation) for a young woman.

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Contents 1 Endothermy 2 Mercury 3 Tongkol 4 Skipjack or Slender?

[edit] Endothermy

I can guarantee that they are not "warm-blooded." Won't be sending my biology students here...

Actually they are endothermic, see p. 424 of Fishes of the World or any recent book on fish biology, Bond for instance. It does need more detail, the story is interesting. Stan 13:56, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, they are warm blooded in that their core body temperature is higher than the surrounding water, and this is maintained by heat-exchange systems in blood vessels that reach the skin (so warm blood moving to the skin is cooled down by, and warms up, blood moving from the skin back to the heart. As far as I know, the difference is not great, but it is there. Unfortunately I don't have enough expertise in the details to be able to produce a good page edit - MPF 18:01, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, these guys think tuna are endothermic (warm-blooded) and it looks to me they ought to know!

[1]

I had no idea that ANY fish were endothermic. Until today I was sure the only endotherms were birds and mammals. This sheds an interesting evolutionary light on things... If you believe in that sort of thing.

I seem to recall that there is at least one reptilian that is warm-blooded. I have no idea what it is, but I'm pretty confident there is a living, warm-blooded, reptilian. --JJLatWiki 20:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

As to warm-blooded reptiles: the dinosaurs (or at least many of them) were just that (as long as you consider them as reptiles, at least).

As to the endothermy of tuna: this is of necessity somewhat limited. Fish have to extract their oxygen from the water in their keels. Water being much more dense than air, this means that the blood passing through their keels can not be hotter than the surrounding water. Otherwise the animal would lose heat far too fast. So there are "temperature valves" within the tuna's body, which ensure that part of the blood is relatively cool, and another part is relatively hot, in order to permit a very intensive muscular activity.

Lignomontanus 10:08, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Lignomontanus, I don't think you mean "keels", I think you mean "gills". Only a few fish have keels (see second picture in Fish anatomy which I added recently) and keels have nothing to do with oxygen, or contain water. GrahamBould 12:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. I ment "gills". I was about to correct my text and found out you had already noticed my mistake.

Lignomontanus (not logged on)

Lignomontanus, at the risk of getting bogged down in detail, when you said "Water being much more dense than air,..." I don't see where air comes into it. It's not a flying fish  :-) GrahamBould 11:16, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The difference is that a water animal, in order to absorb a certain quantity of oxygen, has to let about 1.000 times more mass (in the form of water) through its gills than a land animal has to let mass (in the form of air) through its lungs. For land animals the loss of heat is acceptable, for water animals it would not be.

Lignomontanus 15:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mercury

Correct me if i'm wrong, but mercury levels in Tuna is relatively low compared to most fish. I think there's a problem with the front page.

Albacore tuna ("white" tuna) has higher levels of mercury than canned light tuna, and should only be eaten once a week for at-risk groups. See the FDA/EPA advice at http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fishadvice/advice.html#tuna

I have no idea wtf "canned light tuna" is. The article mentions this phrase as well. Bihal 01:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

we should save the tuna... they are fish there is know right for us to have to eat them

[edit] Tongkol

In reference to Tongkol, I believe it would be better to note that Tongkol (and deriviates) is the Bahasa Indonesia word for a cetain species of Tuna. Looking at the Indonesian Department of Fisheries website, there is a rather complete listing of the various tongkol that are being fished. As "Tongkol" is hyperlinked in this article, I feel it should be better referenced - if not in English Wikipedia, then at least Bahasa Indonesia Tongkol

222.124.209.36 13:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Skipjack or Slender?

The skipjack tuna is referred to in the article as Allothunnus fallai, which, according to the species list below (as well as the linked articles), is the latin name of the slender tuna, the skipjack being Katsuwonus pelamis.

38.117.238.82 01:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)