Book Gills Definition Zoology
The gills of some species such as hermit crabs have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are kept moist.
Book gills definition zoology. Branchia is the zoologists name for gills. Also called gill book. Now only found in horseshoe crabs book gills are thought to be ancestral to book lungs.
Gill book gills composed of a series of plates resembling the pages of a book. Source for information on gill book. The book lungs located inside the arachnid are made up of several thin membranes somewhere between 10 and 80 depending the species.
In aquatic arachnids any of several pairs of external gills that each contain numerous fine lamellae. Some have a pair of book lungs others have several pairs. On the inside of each appendage over 100 thin page like membranes lamellae appearing as pages in a book are where gas exchange takes place.
A dictionary of zoology dictionary. With the exception of some aquatic insects the filaments and lamellae contain blood or coelomic fluid fro. A gill is a respiratory organ found in many aquatic organisms that extracts dissolved oxygen from water and excretes carbon dioxide.
These appendages move rhythmically to drive blood in and out of the lamellae and. The microscopic structure of a gill presents a large surface area to the external environment. Book gills are flap like appendages that effect gas exchange within water and seem to have their origin as modified legs.
Each book gill looks like a flap and as they move they push water over the lamellae which are the thin membranes located within the book gills.