What exothermic reaction distinguishes warm blooded animals? I would appreciate an answer specifically in the form of an exothermic chemical reaction. Namely, the one primarily responsible for generating heat in warm blooded animals that does not take place in cold blooded animals.

Brown adipose tissue or brown fat is one of the primary ways of generating body heat, and it is only found in warm-blooded animals. It is brown due to the high numbers of mitochondria, and heat is generated by uncoupling the electron transport chain from ATP synthesis by oxidative phosphorylation.

In the typical (ATP-producing) mitochondria, an energy gradient is formed by storing protons within the inter-membrane space, and these then flow through the ATP synthase to power the generation of ATP from ADP and phosphate. In brown fat mitochondria, Uncoupling Protein 1 (UCP1 or thermogenin) forms a pore in the inner membrane, allowing the proton/electron ratio to reach equilibrium and robbing ATP synthase of its motive power. This is what generates the heat.

!Thermogenin pathway

From Wikipedia