what are "book lungs" ?

xBurntBytheSunx

Arachnoprince
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i guess why are they called book lungs? are they used differently from people lungs?
 

Code Monkey

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It depends on what scale you're talking whether they work like our lungs.

On the large scale, the big difference is that they're 100% passive. There is no mechanical action to move air in or out of the lungs. Air simply stays in the chamber and moves by passive diffusion.

On the small scale, the gas exchange is mostly the same. The interleaved 'pages' provide a large amount of surface area and haemolymph is pumped through the interior of these pages where gas exchange of CO2 for O2 takes place.
 

Code Monkey

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As for why they're called book lungs, they are a pocket with several invaginations interleaved together like the pages of a book.

Picture 'E' & '3' fitting together and you should get the idea.
 

spyda

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Spiders have different types of respiratory systems. Some have book lungs, some have tubular tracheae, and others have both tracheae and book lungs. Book lungs are located by two hairless patches on the underside of the spider's abdomen. Each lung has an open slit for air intact and a stack of leafletlike, blood filled structures called lamellae. As air passes into the spider's body, blood passes through the lamellae is oxygenated.




steve

www.spyda-webb.co.uk
 

Code Monkey

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Originally posted by spyda
Book lungs are located by two hairless patches on the underside of the spider's abdomen.
Except that Ts completely lack a tracheal system which made that info semi-misleading and they have two pairs of booklungs which, last time I checked, means there would be four hairless patches on the ventral side of the abdomen.
 

AllenG

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Yes, Spiders as a whole breath with either book lungs or tracheae or both. Tarantulas do NOT have tracheae, they only have book lungs, four of them(2 pair).


Oh yeah, and I mean like our lungs only in the sense that it is how they "breathe". Non-scientifically speaking.
 
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