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Whenever I see this image I always wonder 2 things:
- What makes hemoglobin more efficient?
- Why do we even need these fancy molecules to transport oxygen? Can’t we produce some kind of biological ampule that holds some pure O2 for consumption by the various processes that need it? We have dedicated organelle structures for similar tasks (i.e. mitochondria)
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It’s sensitive to pH, so it absorbs oxygen more readily in the lungs, and releases it slightly more near tissues that need it, as they have co2 which slightly acidifies the blood in solution (h2co3).
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It’s effective and well tuned for our biology, it doesn’t bond strongly, and is well suited for the air-blood interface, unlike others that often favor water-blood or water-the fluid worms use instead.
Thank you. Clear, easily understood explanations of questions I always wondered. 👍🏼
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Red, the blood of angry men
Chlorocruorin is really confusingly named. I was trying and failing to find the chlorine in it and was wondering if I was just dumb or blind or what.
khloros is Greek for “green”. That’s also where chlorine gets its name. So they’re only related etymologically.
Interesting tidbit: from left to right, these are ordered by the efficiency of the oxygen transportation, highest to lowest.
Blue blood may be cool, but red blood is better for you.
I guess I could google it but for the sake of the comment section is that from highest to lowest or the other way around?
Highest to lowest. I edited it into the comment.
I remember one of my sister’s teachers were saying that human blood is blue when inside your body. “Just look at your veins!”
Yeah one of the great lies we were all taught.
Oh neat, now I know Penis Worms have purple blood. And that Penis Worms exist.
My exact thoughts. Penis worm? Time to look up how to actively avoid getting any penis worms.
Chill, they’re called that because they kinda look like penises, they’re not penis parasites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapulida?wprov=sfla1
You’re right. It’s the Sounding Worm that is the penis parasite, not Penis Worm. Sounding Worms are aptly named because they get inside the urethra and live there, and can even cause orgasm when excited.
Well now I’m concerned about the picture of my penis in the wiki article…
If that’s how their dicks looked like, they need to see a doctor.
Don’t dip your oar in Lake Katchakootie
They’re easy to spot if you have them.
They’ll appear as thin squiggly lines running underneath your skin, usually a different pigment than your natural skin tone.
It’s the existence I really have a problem with.
came for the outrage, then came for the outrage
Amazing that Vulcans aren’t mentioned on this list. And on a more serious note: humanoids with green blood are apparently not that impossible!
- obligatory Homestuck mention *
Knew about Haemoglobin and Haemocyanin, but never heard of the other two before. Very interesting.
Also, RIP Penis worms. Got a terrible name and have low efficiency oxygen transport.
I knew about the hemocyanin because I was trying to figure out if one of the characters in my tentacle porn should have blue blood but decided against it. Cool to learn about the others too though.
Did you go with purple?
Nah. Weirdly enough it was the character with the arthropod features I was investigating the concept for but now I wonder if I should’ve done that for the illithid so I might look into that. It was relevant to the other character because the actual arthropod features (wings) are missing by the time of the story so it was going to be one of the “hints” that they had her labeled as the wrong species but first of all it just didn’t fit creatively, it was much too overt to the extent it didn’t even make logical sense for the mixup to happen but also as you see here the science doesn’t follow either it’s only spiders and the like that have it, not dragonflies.
Rich “blue blooded” failsons are spiders! Called it!
Penis worms?!?!
interesting to know there’s purple blood, though! I didn’t know that
Whoever named the penis worm hit the nail on the head.
I see what you did there
Haha they’re called like that because of their shape right? Right?
Woohoo!
