How Do Insects Perform Breathing?

All living creatures must breathe in order to sustain life. Breathing in simple language is taking in of air in order to get oxygen and the exhaling of a changed kind of air. The air we breathe out is devoid of oxygen and has increased amount of water and carbon dioxide.

The oxygen we take in is needed to “burn” certain food products, such that these are used by the body. The waste products including water and carbon dioxide are eliminated by the body in part by being breathed out.

The very simple form of breathing is possibly undertaken by Jellyfish and certain worms. They do not have any separate breathing organs. The oxygen in dissolved form soaks into their skins from water in which they live. Dissolved carbon dioxide soaks out. This is how they breathe to live

An earthworm is a more complicated insect. It has a special fluid, the blood to carry oxygen from the skin to the organs inside and also to bring out carbon dioxide. Sometimes, the frog also breathes like this, uses its skin as a breathing organ. The frog has lungs in use when its body needs greater amounts of oxygen.

The breathing among insects is a most unusual and interesting exercise. On examination we find a large number of pores or openings on the abdomen of an insect. Each one of these pores is an opening to a tube called “Trachea”. Like man’s breathing tube this trachea works. The insect breathes through this wind pipe in Lie same way as we do. The difference is that the insect has hundreds of these wind pipes in its belly to admit air. In a small creature like an insect, these tubes do not take up much space. We can very well imagine, what would happen if man’s breathing system were like that of insects. There could hardly been any room left for our other organs.

The rate of breathing or how often we take in air depends on the size of the creature. The larger it is, the slower the breathing rate. An elephant breathes about times a minute, but a mouse breathes about 200 times a minute.