I was watching a documentary about Hammerhead sharks, and I noticed how their gills open very wide. Do fish essentially “breathe” water? I don’t get how they work.
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There are indeed similarities between gills and lungs. Both allow the transfer of oxygen from a medium into the bloodstream. For gills, they are lots of thin lengths of tissue which absorb oxygen out from the water. Just like you can only absorb so much oxygen out from a single lungful of air, aquatic animals can only absorb so much oxygen from water if it isn’t flowing over their gills. So many aquatic animals do indeed force water over their gills akin to how we force air in and out from our lungs.
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