I’m confused by the premise. Don’t most fish require respiration? The phrase “obligate air-breather” conjures the image of an eel surfacing in order to gasp down a few lungfulls of air, but aren’t they just using gills to pull oxygen from the water to do so?
Gar have primitive lungs and will stick their head out of the water to breathe
They’re not the only non-Tetrapod fish that are obligate air breathers.
What
I’m doom scrolling through Lemmy while Just Background Noise is being just background noise, read this meme and don’t understand it, so I shrug it off. About 5 minutes later he starts rambling about eels being air breathers
I watched the video two days ago, so I was just… that sounds familiar, who said that?
Oh, it’s because they live in a low oxygen environment. They can breathe through their skin and gills.
So, not obligate then???
No, they’re definitely obligated. Their gills are tiny and not enough for gas exchange. They need to breathe air via buccal pumping. What they mean by breathing through their skin is they release CO2 from their skin like amphibians do.
Weird. I found out about this today from Strands.
