People complain that it's poor design that humans eat and breath through the same pipe(throat). Are there any animals which don't though?
The only possible exceptions I can think of are fish(I imagine gills and mouth are not connected but don't really know). I am excluding bacteria and viruses and I believe they don't really breath(correct me if I'm wrong).
Dolphins are the most classic example, having the blow hole.
Insects ‘breath’ through their ‘skin’
Dolphins can breathe thru their mouths tho.
There's been some with damaged blowholes who have to resort to that.
What they do normally is like when you can "block" the connection of one or the other so air only goes thru one path. No idea how to describe that, or if other people can do it tho.
But if a dolphin needs to they can breathe thru their mouths just fine.
I read about this after I had the showerthought that dolphins have their nose on the back of their head. Apparently they evolved a 'plug' to separate the nose-lungs and the mouth-stomach. It was thought they couldn't control it, but they found an example of a dolphin who had a damaged blowhole and figured out how to breathe from the mouth. But it looked like it wasn't easy, iirc the dolphin had to basically swim fast before surfacing to get the air to help force it open. The dolphin wasn't expected to live long.
Do you have a link for that? Everything I’m finding says they can’t breathe through their mouth. There’s one scientific paper where they found a mouth breathing dolphin and said this has never been described in a scientific paper before. As far as I can tell there’s just this one dolphin who’s been seen doing it.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mms.12349
Here’s a paper describing a dolphin that died due to blowhole obstruction:
To me it seems more like a one off case that a dolphin was able to mouth breathe, not that all of them can.
Yes, most animals can. Insects don't breathe the way we do at all. They have separate openings for their respiration.
Amphibians start out with gills and only in adulthood do they develop lungs (although the axolotl keeps its gills for life) and can respirate through their skin.
Mollusks either respirate through their skin, gills, or through an air sack.
In none of those cases do the respiratory and digestive tracts cross. And those groups of animals outnumber us by far.
Very interesting thanks... Now to do more research because this has buged me
Most animals do not have this habit of complaining.
Guinea pigs are obligate nasal breathers. They only breathe through their mouths when in extreme respiratory distress.
They are also absolutely adorable.
That air is still going through the same tube as the food though, regardless of nose or mouth breathing.
Most mammals (if not most animals) breathe through their noses.
People complaining about humans being designed poorly don't know that this design "flaw" is what allows us to be able to speak.
Yes, this increases our risk of dying by choking. But despite that, being able to speak has been so evolutionarily advantageous that our increased risk of dying is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
I'd have put the vocal chords in the nasal passage, allowing humans to still talk while eliminating the choking problem.
The laryngeal nerve is a much more stupid design, simply because there's no practical reason for it to be the way it is.
Also: if we didn't have the ability to breath through our mouths, swimming as a sport would be harder, since we don't have the ability to close our nose-holes.
I'd have put the vocal chords in the nasal passage, allowing humans to still talk while eliminating the choking problem.
Exactly. A very simple correction to the design would allow for both.
The laryngeal nerve is a great example of how flawed our bodies are. A few more are:
Yeah, I say designed, but it's not in the "something planned it" sense. We ended up this way because of a series of random chances that just sorta' worked in allowing us to live long enough to have more successful offspring.
Quite a lot of people can close their nose-holes by curling up their upper lip. I'm not one of them, unfortunately.
All arthropods and annelids have completely separate breathing and eating apparatuses. Molluscs don't even breathe; like fish, they have other ways to absorb oxygen.
Don’t dolphins and whales breathe through their blowholes?
Look at my horse.
My horse is amazing.
Give it a lick.
Mm, it tastes just like raisins.
:side-eyeChloe.jpg:
Horses still breathe through the same pharynx that food goes through. The question isn’t mouth vs nose breather it’s “what animals have separate pathways for food and air”, so a horse doesn’t qualify. It’s harder for a horse to inhale food because of the soft palate but it’s not impossible.
Blasphemy! This is intelligent design by our lord saviour!
IN fish water goes in through the mouth and out through the gills, so the connection is required. Some might be able to take water in and out through the gills, but the normal ways is in the mouth out the gills.
At least fish probably can't choke by trying to breathe and drink at the same time.
Wait, so fish inhale water... Some process takes place separating the water and oxygen atoms and then they exhale the carbon dioxide and hydrogen out their gills? Or am I still completely wrong?
Not really inhale-exhale, since they don’t have lungs. Kinda like when you sweat and you can feel the breeze cooling you under your arms. But instead of under your arms it would be on your neck, and instead of cooling you’d be respirating. But yes as the water moves past the gills, the blood is receiving oxygen and expelling CO2.
Can't some frogs absorb oxygen through their skin?
Different pipes, but same orifice I suppose. You aren't eating through your bronchioles. I assure you, if you attempt to eat or drink through your bronchioles, you're going to have a bad day, which i believe is your point.
Bacteria and fungi do respirate but they don't necessarily have organelles. So depends on how you use the term "breath". I think viruses mostly rely on the host cell's preexisting homeostasis.
NO!
When turtles hibernate they 'breathe' through their butt (cloaca).
snores through my asshole
I looove being a turtle!
Now everyone in the mechanic's waiting room is wondering why I just snorted. Thanks... 😂💀
Fun fact. So do bears.
I can only breathe out there.
Boy are cloacas so much more than just a butt...