gills

Examples of gills in the following topics:

• Skin, Gills, and Tracheal Systems

  • Gills are thin tissue filaments that are highly branched and folded.
  • When water passes over the gills, the dissolved oxygen in the water rapidly diffuses across the gills into the bloodstream.
  • Gills are found in mollusks, annelids, and crustaceans.
  • As water flows over the gills, oxygen is transferred to blood via the veins.
  • Describe how the skin, gills, and tracheal system are used in the process of respiration

• Basidiomycota: The Club Fungi

  • The basidiomycota are mushroom-producing fungi with developing, club-shaped fruiting bodies called basidia on the gills under its cap.
  • These mushroom-producing basidiomyces are sometimes referred to as "gill fungi" because of the presence of gill-like structures on the underside of the cap.
  • The "gills" are actually compacted hyphae on which the basidia are borne.
  • The basidiocarp bears the developing basidia on the gills under its cap.

• Phylum Arthropoda

  • Other organisms use variants of gills and lungs.
  • Aquatic crustaceans utilize gills, terrestrial chelicerates employ book lungs, and aquatic chelicerates use book gills .
  • The gills of crustaceans are filamentous structures that exchange gases with the surrounding water.
  • The ventral side of a horseshoe crab showing the book gills located near the telson (tail).
  • These gills flap back and forth bringing oxygen to the blood.

• Modern Amphibians

  • The majority of salamanders are lungless, with respiration occurring through the skin or through external gills.
  • Some terrestrial salamanders have primitive lungs; a few species have both gills and lungs.
  • During this time, the gilled larval stage is found only within the egg capsule, with the gills being resorbed, and metamorphosis being completed, before hatching.
  • Tadpoles usually have gills, a lateral line system, long-finned tails, and lack limbs.
  • During this stage, the gills, tail, and lateral line system disappear, and four limbs develop.

• Amphibian and Bird Respiratory Systems

  • Young amphibians, like tadpoles, use gills to breathe, and they do not leave the water.
  • As the tadpole grows, the gills disappear and lungs grow (though some amphibians retain gills for life).

• Osmoregulators and Osmoconformers

  • The fish do not drink much water and balance electrolytes by passing dilute urine while actively taking up salts through the gills.
  • When they move to a hypertonic marine environment, the salmon lose water, excreting the excess salts through their gills and urine (see [b] in ).

• Characteristics of Chordata

  • In vertebrate fishes, the pharyngeal slits develop into gill arches, the bony or cartilaginous gill supports.

• Types of Breathing

  • In young amphibians, such as tadpoles that do not leave the water, gills are used to breathe.
  • There are some amphibians that retain gills for life.
  • As the tadpole grows, the gills disappear and lungs grow.

• Gnathostomes: Jawed Fishes

  • They can be distinguished from sharks by their flattened bodies, pectoral fins that are enlarged and fused to the head, and gill slits on their ventral surface.
  • All bony fish use gills for gas exchange.
  • Water is drawn over gills that are located in chambers covered and ventilated by a protective, muscular flap called the operculum.

• Types of Circulatory Systems in Animals

  • The atrium collects blood that has returned from the body, while the ventricle pumps the blood to the gills where gas exchange occurs and the blood is re-oxygenated; this is called gill circulation.
  • (a) Fish have the simplest circulatory systems of the vertebrates: blood flows unidirectionally from the two-chambered heart through the gills and then to the rest of the body.