Do fish breathe air?

All fish need oxygen to live – just as we do. But most fish use their gills to extract oxygen from water. So they do not breathe’ air as such.

However, there seems to be an exception to every rule and in this case it is the lungfish of Australia, Africa and South America. As their name suggests, they can take oxygen from the air.

Lungfish are the last survivors of a group of animals that lived in an earlier period of the world’s history. This was the time when animals started to move out of the water to live on land for the first time.

Today’s lungfish live in dry parts of the world where the swamps which are their homes dry up in summer. When this happens they burrow into soft mud and breathe air until the rainy season brings water again. Some lungfish have survived for four years in this way.

 

Picture Credit : Google

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