How do flies breathe?
Insects breathe in a way that is very different from us. Instead of having a central place to gather oxygen (i.e. lungs ) and a transport system (i.e. heart , blood ) to deliver the oxygen to all of the cells of the body like us, insects have a system of fine branching tubes called a tracheal system that delivers the oxygen directly to each cell in the body . Imagine that you are an oxygen molecule in the atmosphere and you are about to be “breathed” into an insect. • You enter a tiny hole on the insect’s thorax or abdomen called a spiracle. The spiracle is the opening of a long tube called a tracheae. • You proceed down the tracheae, which is a long, air-filled, branching tube. • You continue to move through branches until you reach a tiny, fluid-filled, dead end called a tracheole. • You dissolve in the fluid. • From the fluid, you diffuse or move across the wall of the tracheole into an insect cell such as a muscle cell. The movement of air through the tracheal system of most insect
How do flies breathe? Insects breathe in a way that is very different from us. Instead of having a central place to gather oxygen (i.e. lungs ) and a transport system (i.e. heart , blood ) to deliver the oxygen to all of the cells of the body like us, insects have a system of fine branching tubes called a tracheal system that delivers the oxygen directly to each cell in the body . Imagine that you are an oxygen molecule in the atmosphere and you are about to be “breathed” into an insect. • You enter a tiny hole on the insect’s thorax or abdomen called a spiracle. The spiracle is the opening of a long tube called a tracheae. • You proceed down the tracheae, which is a long, air-filled, branching tube. • You continue to move through branches until you reach a tiny, fluid-filled, dead end called a tracheole. • You dissolve in the fluid. • From the fluid, you diffuse or move across the wall of the tracheole into an insect cell such as a muscle cell. The movement of air through the tracheal
