Why are mammals warm blooded?

From: Matt Lewis (matt999_999_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/27/04 

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 04:59:31 +0000 (UTC)

I've been wondering for a while about this and it seems that the main
advantage to maintaining a constant body temperature is that it allows
mammals and similar animals to maintain a high rate of cellular
respiration even in cold conditions. This in turn allows the animal
to perform activities requiring lots of power, e.g. hunting, even in
very cold conditions. However, animals such as sharks are apparently
able to produce high enough levels of power to hunt even in arctic
waters. This seems to imply that they are able to respire rapidly
regardless of their internal temperature. If this is the case, why
are mammals not able to perform the same trick and if they are why do
they waste energy maintaining body temperature?

Thanks for any help,
Matt

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