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The largest living amphibian is the 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) South China giant salamander (Andrias sligoi), but this is dwarfed by prehistoric temnospondyls such as Mastodonsaurus which could reach up to 6 m (20 ft) in length. The study of amphibians is called batrachology, while the study of both reptiles and amphibians is called herpetology.
The lungs develop early and are used as accessory breathing organs, the tadpoles rising to the water surface to gulp air. Some species complete their development inside the egg and hatch directly into small frogs. These larvae do not have gills but instead have specialised areas of skin through which respiration takes place.
Ribs are generally absent, so the lungs are filled by buccal pumping and a frog deprived of its lungs can maintain its body functions without them. [69] The fully aquatic Bornean flat-headed frog (Barbourula kalimantanensis) is the first frog known to lack lungs entirely. [72] Frogs have three-chambered hearts, a feature they share with lizards.
This blood gas barrier is extremely thin (in humans, on average, 2.2 μm thick). It is folded into about 300 million small air sacs called alveoli [23] (each between 75 and 300 μm in diameter) branching off from the respiratory bronchioles in the lungs, thus providing an extremely large surface area (approximately 145 m 2) for gas exchange to ...
Amphibians use their skin as a secondary respiratory interface and some small terrestrial salamanders and frogs lack lungs and rely entirely on their skin. They are superficially similar to reptiles like lizards , but unlike reptiles and other amniotes , require access to water bodies to breed.
Aquatic insects consume the stored air while under water or use it to regulate buoyancy. During a molt, air sacs fill and enlarge as the insect breaks free of the old exoskeleton and expands a new one. Between molts, the air sacs provide room for new growth—shrinking in volume as they are compressed by expansion of internal organs.
African dwarf frogs are very active and rarely sit still for any period of time. When stationary, the African dwarf frog has been known to float in one spot, with its limbs completely outstretched, on the surface of the water. This is normal behavior, called "burbling". Sometimes they just float with limbs spread out, drifting on the surface.
Some freshwater pulmonates keep a bubble of air inside the shell, which helps them to float. [1] Many of the very small freshwater limpets which live in cold water have lost the ability to breathe air, and instead flood their mantle cavity with water. [1] Oxygen diffuses from the water to the snail's body directly. [1]