How Do Fish Breathe?

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A fish is a vertebrate which means it has a bony skeleton with a backbone. It's a vertebrate that lives in the water. They don't have lungs, but they do need oxygen to run their cells. But fishes have a very frilly, complicated blood enriched gill sort of filament. And you've seen them on an axolotl. So this is a very, I mean going back to like when you were a kid and you were marveling at the tank, this is such a basic question. How do fish breathe? It is, that's not a basic question,. It's not complicated.

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Ichthyology is not easy to say, but fish are easy to love. Dr. Chris Thacker will get you so thrilled to stare into a pond or look up pictures of silvery sea serpent-looking fish friends.

Hilariously charming fish expert and LA County Natural History Museum Curator of Ichthyology, Dr. Thacker took Alie to a basement full of several million jars of fish to chat about the worst fish husbands, the weirdest mating behaviors, the scariest fish, the nicest fish, the tiniest fish, how they breathe, how you can help reverse global warming, and whether you should pee in wetsuits. I love her so much and so will you.

(For the adult version, the full-length episode is linked below.)

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Full-length (not classroom-friendly) episode + tons of science links

A donation went to: SeafoodWatch.org

Other full-length episodes you may enjoy: Oceanology (OCEANS), Cnidariology (CORALS), Environmental Toxicology (POISONS), Selachimorphology (SHARKS), Elasmobranchology (MORE SHARK STORIES)

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Sound editing by Steven Ray Morris, Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio, and Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media

Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Kelly R. Dwyer, Emily White, & Erin Talbert