In this video, learn how different animals, like fish, frogs and grasshoppers, breathe.
Learn how a fish, frog and grasshopper breathe in different ways.
Gather round please kids.
We’re here at the lake to find out how different animals breathe.
All animals need to take in oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide, but they can do this in very different ways.
Take fish, for example.
Unlike land animals, fish get their oxygen from water, not air.
They don’t have lungs to breathe with either, they have gills.
Fish gulp water through their mouths and pump it over their gills, which contain thousands of tiny filaments through which blood flows.
The blood absorbs oxygen from the water as it passes over the filaments and releases carbon dioxide.
Frogs are what are called amphibians, which means they are as at home in water as they are on land.
When they start their lives as tadpoles, they have gills like fish, but when they grow up, they develop lungs.
And that’s not all.
A frog’s skin is so thin that it can actually absorb oxygen, allowing the frog to breathe underwater without gills.
Grasshoppers are like us flies and other insects.
They don’t use their noses or mouths to breathe, and don’t have lungs either.
Instead they take in oxygen through tiny openings down the sides of their bodies called spiracles.
The spiracles pass oxygen through a system of tiny tubes that connect directly to tissues and organs of their bodies, and pass carbon dioxide the other way.
Insects can close their spiracles and survive for quite a long time without air.
