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Cutaneous respiration is the sole respiratory mode of lungless salamanders (family Plethodontidae) which lack lungs entirely yet constitute the largest family of salamanders. Cutaneous respiration in frogs and other amphibians may be the primary respiratory mode during colder temperatures.
These give the lung a sponge-like texture. In tuataras, snakes, and some lizards, the lungs are simpler in structure, similar to that of typical amphibians. [109] Snakes and limbless lizards typically possess only the right lung as a major respiratory organ; the left lung is greatly reduced, or even absent.
It is the pressure control performed in the lungs that drive the inhalation and exhalation forces through the flexing of smooth muscle in the lung. [18] In order to exhale, amphiuma push air from their lungs into their buccal cavity, distending the cavity, before releasing the air.
Ribs are generally absent, so the lungs are filled by buccal pumping and a frog deprived of its lungs can maintain its body functions without them. [69] The fully aquatic Bornean flat-headed frog (Barbourula kalimantanensis) is the first frog known to lack lungs entirely. [72] Frogs have three-chambered hearts, a feature they share with lizards.
Four-stroke buccal pumping is used by some basal ray-finned fish and aquatic amphibians such as Xenopus and Amphiuma. [1] This method has several stages. These will be described for an animal starting with lungs in a deflated state: First, the glottis (opening to the lungs) is closed, and the nostrils are opened.
[100] [101] Lungs and swim bladders are homologous (descended from a common ancestral form) as is the case for the pulmonary artery (which delivers de-oxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs) and the arteries that supply swim bladders. [102] Air was introduced into the lungs by a process known as buccal pumping. [103] [104]
Often, the left lung is much smaller than the right one, an adaptation to body shape that is also found in snakes. [ 12 ] Their trunk muscles are adapted to pushing their way through the ground, with the vertebral column and its musculature acting as a piston inside the outer layer of the body wall musculature, which is closely attached to the ...
This 'saccular lung' is used for hydrostatic purposes to adjust buoyancy in some aquatic snakes and its function remains unknown in terrestrial species. [79] Many organs that are paired, such as kidneys or reproductive organs , are staggered within the body, one located ahead of the other.