Young Amphibians Breathe With

With some amphibians it appears that they can breathe underwater when in fact they are holding their breath.

Young amphibians breathe with. As compared to reptiles amphibians have smooth skin. Mammals birds reptiles and adult amphibians breathe using lungs. As the tadpole grows the gills disappear and lungs grow.

This means that they deal with slow diffusion of oxygen through their blood. Amphibians have primitive lungs compared to reptiles birds or mammals. Some amphibians can hold their breath for hours.

Most adult amphibians can breathe both through cutaneous respiration through their skin and buccal pumping though some also retain gills as adults. A few amphibians dont bother with lungs and instead absorb oxygen through their skin. Many young amphibians also have feathery gills to extract oxygen from water but later lose these and develop lungs.

Eventually they grow to lengths of up to 74 centimeters 29 inches. The gills lie behind and to the side of the mouth cavity and consist of fleshy filaments supported by the gill arches and filled with blood vessels which give gills a bright red colour. They are vertebrates and cold blooded like amphibians.

As the tadpole grows the gills disappear and lungs grow though some amphibians retain gills for life. Amphibians are small vertebrates that need water or a moist environment to survive. One such example is Salamandra salamandra which sometimes gives birth to fully metamorphosed live young.

Oxygen passes through the porous shell ie. They dont have gills and instead of gills they do have papillae that do the same function as gills when they are inside water for a long time. Do amphibians breathe through lungs.