If fish use their gills to filter oxygen from water, why can’t they do the same in air?
In: 14
Gills function by having a very high surface area with a bunch of “plates” that are stacked on top of each other. Water flows in between all these plates fully wetting the top and bottom of each for a huge total surface area.
Out of the water the plates stick together like wet leaves and the fish suffocates with 90+% of the gill surface now blocked and the exposed area dangerously dry.
Some fish do have some creative solutions to breathing air though, as an adaptation to nasty swamp water or low tide.
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