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Quiz about A Fish Called Opah
Quiz about A Fish Called Opah

A Fish Called Opah Trivia Quiz


This quiz contains interesting facts about the opah, a commercial fish that scientists have recently discovered to be the first true warm-blooded fish.

A multiple-choice quiz by Twibli. Estimated time: 4 mins.
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Author
Twibli
Time
4 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
375,354
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
6 / 10
Plays
241
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. Scientists recently announced that the opah, a commercial fish that is increasing in popularity, is actually the world's first documented warm-blooded fish. What is the scientific name for the opah? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. Let's separate fact from fiction about this amazing and beautiful warm-blooded fish. Which statement is NOT true? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. Some fish such as tuna and some sharks exhibit limited warm-bloodness. Warm parts of their body which gives them a competitive edge over sluggish deepwater fish. Their internal organs cool off quickly, however, and they are required to return often to shallow water to warm up. What is the term used to denote this unusual ability? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Prior to the documentation of the opah as the first truly warm-blooded fish, what other animals were known to be warm-blooded (animals that maintain a constant body temperature, typically above that of their surroundings)? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. The opah is the first fully warm-blooded fish that circulates heated blood throughout its body. How warm is the body temperature of the opah? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. A special body part has adapted to allow the opah to pump warm blood throughout its body. What part of the body has been found to be responsible for the opah being a warm-blooded fish? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. The opah is one of the most colorful of the commercial fish species, noted for its red fins and tail. By what other name is the opah commonly known? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. The taste is said to be distinctive but not overpowering making it a flexible seafood choice. What does the taste of opah most resemble? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. While the opah can be found in most tropical and temperate ocean waters of the world, in what unusual place has the opah been found? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. The distinctive disc-like deep bodied shape and specialized pectoral fins are represented in Megalampris keyesi, a gigantic fossil opah twice the length of the modern opah. When did this specialized pectoral swimming characteristic of lampids first manifest in the fossil record? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Scientists recently announced that the opah, a commercial fish that is increasing in popularity, is actually the world's first documented warm-blooded fish. What is the scientific name for the opah?

Answer: Lampris guttatus

It always been believed that all fish are cold-blooded animals. Enter the opah. In May 2015 scientists rocked our idea of what it means to be warm-blooded when they announced that this amazing fish is the world's first warm-blooded fish. According to NOAA, because opah are not a major seafood species and they live in the deep ocean, scientists know little about their biology and ecology and had assumed them to be similar to other Pacific Ocean pelagic fish. Now nearly everything we know about the opah is up for reinvestigation.

The scientific name for the opah is Lampris guttatus. Holacanthus bermudensis is commonly known as the blue angelfish. Carcharodon carcharias is the great white shark and Carssius auratus is a goldfish. The pelagic zone, also called the open-ocean zone, is from the Greek (pélagos) meaning "open sea".
2. Let's separate fact from fiction about this amazing and beautiful warm-blooded fish. Which statement is NOT true?

Answer: They swim in large schools close to shore.

Until the opah became a more mainstream menu item, fishermen would give their opah away as a gesture of goodwill in the hopes of garnering good luck. This has rarely been done since the 1980s when opah flesh became a commercially viable commodity.
3. Some fish such as tuna and some sharks exhibit limited warm-bloodness. Warm parts of their body which gives them a competitive edge over sluggish deepwater fish. Their internal organs cool off quickly, however, and they are required to return often to shallow water to warm up. What is the term used to denote this unusual ability?

Answer: regional endothermy

A fish exhibiting regional endothermy is not a true warm-blooded fish because they cannot maintain a temperature above that of their environment. They must surface to warm their blood which at depth, gives them an advantage in speed, eyesight and agility that sluggish cold water fish cannot attain.

In zoology, a warm-blooded animal is said to be endothermic. The opah is the first documented endothermic fish and does not need to surface to maintain a warm body temperature. Warm-bloodness gives them an edge over cold blooded fish, even fish exhibiting regional endothermy. The word endothermic is also used to denote a chemical change accompanied by an absorption of heat as opposed to the word exothermic which is a chemical change that is accompanied by a liberation of heat.
4. Prior to the documentation of the opah as the first truly warm-blooded fish, what other animals were known to be warm-blooded (animals that maintain a constant body temperature, typically above that of their surroundings)?

Answer: birds and mammals

Mammals and birds are warm-blooded. This trait gives them the ability to tolerate external temperature changes better than cold-blooded animals. While lions and tigers are warm blooded animals, a bean is a legume.
5. The opah is the first fully warm-blooded fish that circulates heated blood throughout its body. How warm is the body temperature of the opah?

Answer: about 5 degrees C above surrounding water

A body temperature just 5 degrees C above the surrounding water gives the opah a decided advantage over competing predators at depths of 150 - 1000 feet. They don't have to surface regularly in order to warm up. The higher body temperature is thought to increase muscle capacity, improve eyesight and brain function, and to resist the effects of cold water at those depths. Their large, specialized pectoral fins combined with the advantage of being warm-blooded allow the opah to move with a swift agility and migrate long distances in an environment where other predators and their prey are slowed by extremely cold water temperatures.

37 degrees C is the normal human body temperature and 78 degrees C is the boiling point of ethanol.
6. A special body part has adapted to allow the opah to pump warm blood throughout its body. What part of the body has been found to be responsible for the opah being a warm-blooded fish?

Answer: gills

Unusual tissue in the opah's gills carry warm blood back through its body after cold blood in other vessels in the gills absorb oxygen from cold water. This design is known as "counter current heat exchange". The location of this tissue in its gills allows the opah to maintain an elevated temperature throughout nearly all of its body as it swims rapidly through the water propelled by large pectoral fins. Fatty tissue surrounds the gills and internal organs, insulating the body of the opah from frigid temperatures in its environment and imparting the unique taste that makes it a desirable dinner entrée for humans.

The average opah is caught as a single fish by commercial fishermen and weighs about 100 pounds.
7. The opah is one of the most colorful of the commercial fish species, noted for its red fins and tail. By what other name is the opah commonly known?

Answer: moonfish

In Hawaii and other places the opah is sometimes called moonfish. Some lesser-used alternate names for the opah are Jerusalem haddock, sunfish, kingfish, and redfin ocean pan fish. It shares some of these names with other species of freshwater and saltwater fish.

Jewelfish and suckfish are fish, but the starfish is an echinoderm.
8. The taste is said to be distinctive but not overpowering making it a flexible seafood choice. What does the taste of opah most resemble?

Answer: a cross between tuna and swordfish

The opah usually swims alone rather than in schools and is harvested in the Pacific for commercial purposes in the USA where it is becoming increasingly popular. It has a rich, creamy taste and a firm, fatty texture making it an attractive option for many types of fish based dishes.

The year-round availability of opah makes it a good commercial fish and it can be found in a wide range of recipies for grilling, broiling and sashimi. Its flesh comes in four different colors depending upon what part of the fish it comes from, and cooks up white except the red breastplate meat which turns brown when heated.
9. While the opah can be found in most tropical and temperate ocean waters of the world, in what unusual place has the opah been found?

Answer: Gulf of Alaska

Fishermen and fishery biologists have noticed an unusual number of opah catches in the Gulf of Alaska, and at first attributed this phenomenon to ocean warming. With the discovery that the opah is a warm-blooded fish and from data collected from tagged fish, scientists now know that the opah migrates rapidly across long distances and they are having to revist the habits and ecology of the opah because it is obviously a different animal than comparable cold-blooded pelagic fish.

As of May 2015, while the mechanism of that allows the opah to be warm-blooded is understood to working much like the radiator of an automobile, the implications of being a warm-blooded fish which is increasingly showing up in catches in cold waters cannot, with certainty, be attributed to ocean warming. The range of the opah may not be as dependent upon water temperature as the ranges of cold-bloodied fish. Much is unknown of the implications of warm-bloodedness upon an animal in an environment thought to consist entirely of cold-blooded creatures. More study of many aspects of the opah is needed to determine why it is showing up in unexpected places around the world from the Gulf of Alaska to the Southern Ocean.
10. The distinctive disc-like deep bodied shape and specialized pectoral fins are represented in Megalampris keyesi, a gigantic fossil opah twice the length of the modern opah. When did this specialized pectoral swimming characteristic of lampids first manifest in the fossil record?

Answer: Oligocene

The Oligocene is the latest epoch of the Paleogene period lasting 3.339 to 23 million years before the present time. The Eocene (56 to 33.9 million years before present) and Paleocene (66 to 56 million years before present) are earlier epochs of the Paleogene. The Pliocene (5.44 to 2.58 million years before present) is in the Neogene period of the geologic record.
Source: Author Twibli

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