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Efficient fish not faint-hearted

Nature volume 389, pages 229–230 (1997)Cite this article

The blood circulation systems of certain air-breathing fishes and most reptiles appear to be primitive and inefficient. But there may well be good reason that they are designed the way they are, and the principles concerned could inform clinicians who treat heart disease.

A primary function of blood circulation is to provide oxygenated blood to the tissues of the body. Why, then, in some air-breathing fishes, does oxygenated blood flow from the lung to the heart and then to the gills, rather than flowing directly to oxygenate the body? And why do the hearts of most reptiles retain an only partially divided ventricle, given that mixing venous and arterial blood reduces oxygen delivery to the body? Writing in the August issue of Paleobiology, Colleen Farmer1 proposes an intriguing function for these puzzling circulatory patterns — that they provide oxygenated blood to the heart muscle itself.

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Figure 1: Simplified circulatory-system diagrams of selected vertebrates.

References

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  1. the Biology Department, and the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 01003, Massachusetts, USA

    Elizabeth Brainerd

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  1. Elizabeth Brainerd
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Brainerd, E. Efficient fish not faint-hearted. Nature 389, 229–230 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/38381

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