The Animal that Breathes WITHOUT Lungs!

Surely we all need lungs to breathe?

But what if we didn't? How would that work?

In today's episode Fin tells us about a tiny animal that doesn't have lungs but breathes just fine. Click play to find out what animal it is. 

You'll be amazed at how they do this.

Transcript:

Welcome to Brain Pop! — where your brain goes boom with one mind-blowing fact every day!
I’m Fin — your curious, crawling, fact-finding buddy — and today we’re zooming in on some of the smallest creatures on Earth… and discovering a BIG surprise about how they breathe!

Let’s get that brain popping — no lungs required!

Alright, take a deep breath with me.
In through your nose… and out through your mouth.

Feels good, right? That’s your lungs at work! Humans (and most animals you know — like dogs, cats, even whales) have lungs that take in oxygen from the air and move it into the blood, so every part of the body can stay alive and active.

But guess what?
Ants don’t have lungs.
Nope! Not even tiny little ones.

Ants are way too small to fit big organs like lungs inside their bodies. Instead, they have a completely different — and totally brilliant — way of breathing!

Ants have tiny holes on the sides of their bodies called spiracles. Air enters through these holes and travels through a network of tiny tubes called tracheae.
These tubes carry the oxygen directly to their muscles and organs — no need for blood to do the work like in humans! It’s like an instant air delivery system.

Here’s an easy way to picture it:
•Imagine if you didn’t need lungs at all — and instead had little straws all over your skin that slurped up air straight into your muscles.
•You could be running, jumping, climbing — all fueled by mini air tunnels! That’s how ants roll.

And because they’re so small, ants don’t need nearly as much oxygen as humans do.
If humans breathed like ants, we’d need a network of tubes sticking out of our bodies everywhere — which, um, might make soccer games a little tricky.

Wow — ants are tiny but totally mighty! No lungs, no problem!
Thanks for popping your brain with me on today’s itty-bitty, breathing-without-lungs episode of Brain Pop!.

Be sure to crawl back tomorrow for another small but mighty fact. And here’s your ant-sized question of the day:
If you could shrink down to the size of an ant, what’s the first thing you would explore? A blade of grass? A kitchen crumb? A LEGO city?

See you next time on Brain Pop! — where curiosity is cool, facts are fun, and every day your brain goes BOOM!