Amazing Ways Animals Get the Oxygen They Need

Transcription

1 ARTICLE-A-DAY Amazing Ways Animals Get the Oxygen They Need 6 Articles Check articles you have read: What's This? Axolotl 143 words What's This? Brain Freeze 102 words What's This? Breathing Thin Air 94 words What's This? Deep Sea Diver 111 words What's This? More Oxygen, Please 68 words What's This? Surviving Without Oxygen 102 words Page 1 of 7 ReadWorks.org 2018 ReadWorks, Inc. All rights reserved. Articles generously provided by American Museum of Natural History are included. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

2 This? Axolotl What's This? Axolotl amnh What's This is a salamander called axolotl! But the axolotl is not your typical salamande r. It lives its whole life underwater. Most salamanders are like frogs and other amphibians: they start their lives in water, then lose their gills and grow lungs as they mature. As adults, they breathe air and live on land. This is how swimming tadpole s be coming hopping frog s. Photo by Orizatriz (CC BY 2.0 license) Most amphibians start their lives in water, and grow up to live on land. But axolotls live their whole lives in water. These salamanders don't change the way other amphibians do. They keep traits like their feathery gills and fins that allow them to breathe and swim underwater. But the axolotl never goes through metamorphosis. So as it grows, it keeps its fish-like fins and the feathery gills to get oxygen from the water. Page 2 of 7

3 This? Brain Freeze This? Brain Freeze When animals hibernate in the winter, they take in very little oxygen. A hibernating bear may take a breath only once a minute. How do animals get by on so little oxygen? Their body systems slow way down. But brains still ne e d a lot of oxyg e n. The Arctic ground squirrel solve s this proble m by "powering down" its brain in the winter. During hibernation, the connections between brain cells withe r. Like most hibe rnators, the squirre l wake s up now and the n. The conne ctions in the brain "rebuild" themselves very quickly and the little animal drifts back to sleep. Photo Courtesy of National Park Service Page 3 of 7

4 This? Breathing Thin Air This? Breathing Thin Air As any mountain climber knows, the air gets thinner and thinner the higher you climb. This means that there's less oxyg e n to bre athe. But some animals, like the Ruppell's vulture, do perfectly well at high altitudes with low oxygen levels. In fact, one of these large birds once collided with a plane 37,000 feet (11 kilometers) over Africa. That's higher than the peak of Mt. Everest! High-flying birds like the Ruppell's vulture have a protein in their blood that helps their bodies function with less oxygen. Rob Schoenmaker (CC BY-SA 2.5 license) Page 4 of 7

5 This? Deep Sea Diver This? Deep Sea Diver How long can you hold your bre ath? If you're like most people, a minute would be a long time. But the elephant seal can hold its breath for up to two hours! This marine mammal can dive down nearly a mile (1,430 me te rs) while hunting fish and squid in the icy wate rs around Antarctica. What allows the m to survive for so long on just one lungful of air? Like us, elephant seals are mammals. Pound for pound, the se al has thre e times the amount of blood that you do. It can also store three times the amount of oxygen in its Photo Courtesy of U.S. Antarctic Program muscles as you can. Page 5 of 7

6 This? More Oxygen, Please This? More Oxygen, Please Many creatures respond to cold by shutting down and using less oxygen, but the bumblebee does the opposite. When temperatures drop to a chilly 40 F (5 C), the bumblebee keeps flying even when other insects can't. Running its flig ht muscle s in the cold take s more oxygen, but the payoff is worth it: since other nectar-feeders can't fly, bumblebees have first dibs on flowers! Photo Courtesy of R.Hansen/USFWS Page 6 of 7

7 This? Surviving Without Oxygen This? Surviving Without Oxygen Mammals like bears and squirrels are the most familiar hibe rnators. But many othe r cre ature s like birds, amphibians, and re ptile s e nte r this winter "sleep" to conserve energy. Painted turtles hibernate in an unusual place: at the bottom of a froze n lake, without any oxyg e n at all! Buried in mud, these reptiles can survive four or five months without oxygen. They get energy from their Photo by André Karwath (CC BY-SA 2.5 license) body tissue s, which cause a harmful substance calle d lactic acid to build up. The calcium in the ir hard, heavy shells reacts with the lactic acid, making it harmle ss. Page 7 of 7