Abstract
We all take our hearts for granted: the fascinating organ inside everyone that beats continuously to keep blood pumping through our bodies. Blood flow ensures that oxygen, nutrients from food, hormones, and waste products get to the correct cells. The heart is essential for keeping humans and most animals alive. Hearts are even more interesting when we examine what they do, how they look, how they work, and the similarities and differences in the hearts of species across the planet. Is a giraffe heart similar to a human heart? Which animal survives despite having no heart? Can a heart really beat over 1,500 times a minute? From dinosaurs to insects, humans to dogs, this paper looks at what is really happening on the inside, exploring the world of heart anatomy.
Highlights
AGE: We all take our hearts for granted: the fascinating organ inside everyone that beats continuously to keep blood pumping through our bodies
Times a minute? From dinosaurs to insects, humans to dogs, this paper looks at what is really happening on the inside, exploring the world of heart anatomy
In our previous Frontiers for Young Minds paper “Mending a Broken Heart,” we looked at fixing failing hearts [, ]
Summary
You surely know that humans and gira es have just one heart, as most animals do—but not all. Two hearts pump blood to the gills to take up oxygen, and the other pumps blood around the body Starfish do not even have blood, so this explains why no heart is required. Instead, they use small hair-like structures called cilia to push seawater through their bodies and they extract oxygen from the water. Bird and mammal hearts have four chambers (two atria and two ventricles). The chick heart will become four-chambered, with two atria and two ventricles. Amphibians include toads, frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (amphibians without legs or limbs)
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