+100 ANIMALS THAT BREATH THROUGH THEIR LUNGS

2024 Author: Carl Johnson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 06:19

Respiration is a necessary process for all animals. Through respiration, they take in the oxygen your body needs to carry out vital functions and expel excess carbon dioxide from your body. However, different groups of animals have developed different mechanisms to perform this activity. For example, there are animals that can breathe through their skin, through their gills, or through their lungs.

In this article on our site, we tell you about the animals that breathe through their lungs and how they do it. Let us begin!

What is pulmonary respiration in animals?

Pulmonary breathing is breathing through the lungs. It is the way we use humans and the rest of the mammals. However, there are other groups of animals that breathe through the lungs. Birds, reptiles, and most amphibians also use this type of breathing. There are even fish that breathe through lungs!

Phases of pulmonary respiration

Lung respiration usually has two phases:

Inhalation: the first, called inhalation, in which air from outside enters the lungs, which may be through the mouth or nostrils.
Exhalation: and the second phase called exhalation, in which air and its waste are expelled from the lungs to the outside.

In the lungs are the alveoli, which are very narrow tubes that have a unicellular wall, which allows the passage of oxygen into the bloodWhen air enters, the lungs swell and gas exchange takes place in the alveoli. In this way, oxygen enters the blood, which is distributed throughout all the organs and tissues of the body, and carbon dioxide leaves the lungs, which is later released into the atmosphere when the lungs relax.

What are the lungs?

But what exactly is a lung? The lungs are invaginations of the body that contain the medium from which oxygen is to be obtained. It is on the surface of the lungs that gas exchange takes place. The lungs are usually paired and perform a bidirectional respiration: the air enters and leaves through the same tube. Depending on the type of animal and its characteristics, lungs vary in shape and size and may have other associated functions.

Now, it's easy to imagine this type of breathing in humans and other mammals, but did you know that there are other groups of animals that breathe through lungs? Are you curious to know what they are? Read on and find out!

Lung-breathing animals - What is pulmonary respiration in animals?

Aquatic animals that breathe through lungs

Aquatic animals usually obtain oxygen through gas exchange with water. They can do this in various ways, including through cutaneous respiration (through the skin) and gill respiration. However, because air has so much more oxygen than water, many aquatic animals have evolved pulmonary respiration as a supplementary way to obtain oxygen from the atmosphere.

As well as being a more effective way to obtain oxygen, the lungs also help aquatic animals to float.

Lung-breathing fish

Strangely enough, there are cases of fish breathing through their lungs, such as the following:

Senegal Bichir or African Dragonfish (Polypterus senegalus)
Marble Lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus)
American Mudfish (Lepidosiren paradoxa)
Queensland Lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri)
African lungfish (Protopterus annectens)

Lung-breathing amphibians

Most amphibians, as we will see later, spend part of their lives through gill respiration and then develop pulmonary respiration. Some examples of amphibians that breathe through their lungs are:

Common Toad (Bufo spinosus)
San Antonio frog (Hyla molleri)
Monito frog (Phyllomedusa sauvagii)
Fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra)
Caecilia (Grandisonia sechellensis)

Water turtles that breathe through lungs

Other animals with lungs that have adapted to the aquatic environment are sea turtles. Like all other reptiles, turtles, both land and sea, breathe through their lungs. However, sea turtles can also perform gas exchange through skin respiration; in this way, they can use the oxygen in the water. Some examples of aquatic turtles that breathe through their lungs are:

Loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta)
Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas)
Leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea)
Red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans)
Pig-nosed Turtle (Carettochelys insculpta)

Although pulmonary respiration is the main form of oxygen uptake, thanks to this alternative form of respiration sea turtles can hibernate on the seabed, going weeks without surfacing!

Marine mammals that breathe through lungs

In other cases, the condition of pulmonary respiration is prior to life in the water. This is the case of cetaceans (whales and dolphins), which, although they only use lung respiration, have developed adaptations to aquatic life These animals have fossae nostrils (called spiracles) located in the upper part of the skull, through which they generate the entry and exit of air to and from the lungs without the need to go completely to the surface. Some cases of marine mammals that breathe through their lungs are:

Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus)
Orca (Orcinus orca)
Common dolphin (Delphinus delphis)
Manatee (Trichechus manatus)
Grey seal (Halichoerus grypus)
Elephant Seal (Mirounga leonina)

Animals that breathe through lungs - Aquatic animals that breathe through lungs

Land animals that breathe through lungs

All vertebrate animals on land breathe through their lungs. However, each group has different evolutionary adaptations according to its own characteristics. In birds, for example, the lungs are associated with air sacs, which they use as a reserve of fresh air to make breathing more effective and make their bodies lighter for flight.

In addition, in these animals, internal air transport is also associated with vocalizations In the case of snakes and some lizards, due to the size and shape of their bodies, one of the lungs is usually very small or even disappear.

Lung-breathing reptiles

Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodoensis)
Boa (Boa constrictor)
American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus)
Galapagos Giant Tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra)
Horseshoe snake (Hemorrhois hippocrepis)
Jesus Christ Lizard (Basiliscus basiliscus)

Lung-breathing birds

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri)
Red-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris)
Ostrich (Struthio camelus)
Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans)

Land-breathing mammals

Weasel (Mustela nivalis)
Human (Homo sapiens)
Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)
Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis)
Mouse (Mus musculus)

Animals that breathe through lungs - Land animals that breathe through lungs

Invertebrate animals that breathe through lungs

Within the invertebrate animals that breathe through the lungs, the following are found.

Lung-breathing arthropods

In arthropods, respiration usually occurs through the tracheoles, which are branches of the trachea. However, arachnids (spiders and scorpions) have also developed a pulmonary breathing system that they carry out through structures called book lungs

These structures are made up of a large cavity called the atrium, which contains lamellae (where gas exchange takes place) and intervening air spaces, organized like the pages of a book. The atrium is open to the outside through a hole called a spiracle.

To better understand this type of respiration in arthropods, we recommend you consult this other article on our site on Tracheal respiration in animals.

Lung-breathing molluscs

Molluscs also have a large body cavity. This cavity is called the mantle cavity, and in aquatic molluscs it contains gills that absorb oxygen from the incoming water. In the molluscs of the Pulmonata group (terrestrial snails and slugs), this cavity does not have gills, but is highly vascularized and functions like a lung, absorbing the oxygen contained in the air that enters from the outside through a pore called a pneumostome.

In this other article on our site about Types of mollusks - characteristics and examples, you will find more examples of mollusks that breathe through the lungs.

Lung-breathing echinoderms

Speaking of pulmonary respiration, the case of sea cucumbers (sea cucumbers) may be one of the most interesting. These invertebrate and aquatic animals have developed a form of pulmonary respiration that instead of using air, they use water They have structures called “respiratory trees” that function as aquatic lungs.

Respiratory trees are highly branched ducts that are connected to the external environment through the cloaca. They are called lungs because they are invaginations and because they have bidirectional flow. The water enters and leaves through the same place: la cloaca; and it does so thanks to contractions of the cloaca. Gas exchange takes place on the surface of respiratory trees, using oxygen from the water.

Animals that breathe through lungs - Invertebrate animals that breathe through lungs

Animals that breathe through lungs and gills

Many aquatic animals that breathe through their lungs also have other types of complementary respiration, such as skin respiration and gill respiration.

Among the animals that breathe through lungs and gills are amphibians, which spend the first stage of their life (larval stage) in the water, where they breathe through gills. However, most amphibians lose their gills in their adult stage (terrestrial stage) and switch to lung and skin respiration.

Some fishes also breathe through gills early in life, and as adults they breathe through both lungs and the gills. However, other fish have obligate lung respiration in adulthood, as is the case of species belonging to the genera Polypterus, Protopterus and Lepidosiren, which can drown if they do not have access to the surface.

If you want to expand your knowledge and complete all the information provided in this article about animals that breathe through their lungs, you can consult this other article on our site about Animals that breathe through their skin.