Why fish are better at breathing than you are - Dan Kwartler

Explore how fish use their gills to breathe, and how these processes make them some of the most efficient breathers on Earth.
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Recent studies found that elite runners can take in twice as much oxygen as non-runners. And it’s likely that this superhuman ability played a role in breaking the two-hour marathon barrier in 2019. But when it comes to breathing efficiently, not even the best runners can compete with the average fish. What makes fish some of the best breathers on Earth? Dan Kwartler explores the science of gills.
Lesson by Dan Kwartler, directed by Denys Spolitak.
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View full lesson: ed.ted.com/lessons/why-fish-a...
Dig deeper with additional resources: ed.ted.com/lessons/why-fish-a...
Animator's website: vimeo.com/denysspolitak
Music: www.campstudio.co
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Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Roberto Chena, Oliver Koo, Luke Pisano, Andrea Gordon, Aleksandar Donev, Nicole Klau Ibarra, Jesse Lira, Ezekiel Raui, Petr Vacek, Dennis, Olivia Fu, Kari Teffeau, Cindy Lai, Rajath Durgada Manjunath, Dan Nguyen, Chin Beng Tan, Tom Boman, Karen Warner, Iryna Panasiuk, Aaron Torres, Eric Braun, Sonja Worzewski, Michael Clement, Adam Berry, Ghaith Tarawneh, Nathan Milford, Tomas Beckett, Alice Ice, Eric Berman, Kurt Paolo Sevillano, Jennifer Heald, Megulo Abebe, isolwi, Kate Sem, Ujjwal Dasu, Angel Alberici, Minh Quan Dinh, Sylvain, Terran Gimpel, Talia Sari, Katie McDowell, Allen, Mahina Knuckles, Charmaine Hanson, Thawsitt, Jezabel, Abdullah Abdulaziz, Xiao Yu, Melissa Suarez and Brian A. Dunn.

[@reihanasabrina645]

In the defense of our species a fish probably can’t run a Vienna marathon in 1 hour 59 minutes and 40 seconds

[@andreaspetersen361]

Well, me neither

[@oyaji_sus6882]

​@@andreaspetersen361 Then you are a fish.

[@annejie]

​@@andreaspetersen361you could in some circumstances, the fish will never be able

[@oracleofdelphi4533]

Last I checked, Fish don't seem to to so well on on land. About as well as a human in water. If fish could breathe air, I imagine they'd develop a similar level of inefficiency.

[@Kaikaku]

Well, there are not so many species that can run a (Vienna) marathon. Humans are quite good in this respect (ability to sweat for the win).

[@CYCLAM3]

0:05 "If my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike"

[@loler49er]

This is fish propaganda

[@timothytumusiime2903]

Facts!!!!! Don't be fooled ladies 😏

[@draco147]

​@@timothytumusiime2903landies

[@humanno9]

As a human, I can confirm that this is untrue and fish are, in fact very good

[@mhdfrb9971]

Must be by anti tiktaalik propaganda

[@aftonair]

Yeah! Brought to you by "Big Fish".

[@user-je5mb9yy8n]

3:18 A blobfish doesn't look like that in its native habitat of the depths. It only looks like that if it's pulled up rapidly to above the surface. It looks nothing like this when you just leave it alone.

[@baronliu2546]

3:30

[@antoniusmikael8093]

We need justice for blob fish

[@SirsasthNigam.]

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Psychrolutes_marcidus.jpg

[@sebastianfulmikov5114]

i just search for howw does blob fish look, and i realy am surprise

[@DavidCruickshank]

Yeah, kinda disappointed that an educational channel would make that mistake.

[@emmanuelvillagra9972]

Why did I become suddenly breathing consciously while watching this?

[@Becky_Cooling]

4:45 'fortunately for most fish' *shows dolphin, a mammal*

[@Patrick_IV]

🤓

[@abhayrohit]

what's a mammal

[@Becky_Cooling]

@@Patrick_IV Thank you! I'm a nerd and very proud of it. I'm glad that you acknowledge my nerdiness.

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

Technically, all mammals are fish, since we evolved from fish.

[@Patrick_IV]

@@Carlos-bz5oo "we evolved from fish" 🤣🤣🤣 this's what happens when you believe in the theory of evolution 😂🤣

[@JackieOwl94]

To be fair, they did have a 300 million year head start compared to our lungs, which is about half as long as complex life has been on earth. They got an amazing head start.

[@csmyfavoritecompany1213]

Now I know why Tanjiro always mastering breathing techniques

[@jasonszeto7790]

LOL just about to watch the newest ep

[@mc5574]

I like the animation, it is very well done

[@ahmedkamal7095]

I swear i read the thumbnail as "how do GIRLS work"😅

[@ViewerAaron]

At first, me too. No shame.

[@greatwolf5372]

No scientist will ever be able to figure that out

[@Applestoroger]

there's plenty of fish in the sea

[@ahmedkamal7095]

@@Applestoroger yeaaaaaaaaahhhh!! I actually thought they put the fish on the thumbnail as a metaphor😅

[@VaBellaBeautz]

And you clicked it straight away?

[@kamillelord3891]

I am *so* aware of my breathing right now.

[@mustangNsally]

Manually breathing

[@peterrosqvist2480]

Translate it into mindful breathing!

[@levy7614]

Why did the fish accept its death after losing its respiratory organs? Because it lost the gill to live.

[@joanhoffman3702]

Very finny! 😂

[@wiandryadiwasistio2062]

that’s a gill-ion-dollars joke right there folks!

[@anonymousx6398]

I miss read the thumbnail as How go girl work 😂😂

[@IcefisherTenacity]

The blobfish has been misrepresented in its ideal water pressure. It’s infamous blobbiness is a result of depressurization and not seen in it’s deep sea natural habitat.

[@shitmypants5275]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing lol they look normal under water

[@devindaniels1634]

3:26 when talking about species of fish surviving through their efficient breathing, you've got cephalopods and whales. Did anyone bother to check the graphics you're including?

[@macspringett8617]

Weird that I was just randomly thinking about this yesterday

[@thechickenwizard8172]

A lot of aquatic animals like amphibian larvae, sharks, lamprey, and certian bony fish lack an operculum. I'd take a shot and guess that operculums aren't as crucial for underwater breathing if A: the animal is only aquatic temporarily or can substitute air as well, B: they use some other motion to move water through the gills (ram breathing in sharks for instance), or C: they can absorb some oxygen through their skin.

[@garg4531]

Fascinating deduction

[@FarhanPerdana]

Best water breathing user, ever.

[@honeyjuice219]

me at 3am, yes I do want to learn how does gills work

[@litetaker]

Ah come on! Again the misinformation about the blobfish is being spread. It is extremely unfair to give it the name blobfish as it looks like a blob only on the surface. At its natural habitat deep down the ocean, it looks like a normal fish!

[@Lanpenn]

Betta splendens has the labyrinth organ. Despite breathing most time with the gills, it always must swim up to breath atmospheric air.

[@sazami1539]

some fish like catfish or gourami often gulps air from the surface, how does that work? they dont have lungs but breath air with their gills?

[@jackt883]

I read that title totally wrong. Thought it said "How do girls work". If you fancy making a video on that it'd be much appreciated. 😂

[@bronkobjama3154]

The… the thumbnail has a fish on it

[@Senki207]

Female attention is fleeting and temporary. Fish are eternal

[@GiveMeSpaceTravel-bg8td]

If he did make that video it would be entirely speculative 😅

[@younghoganwang]

absolutely fascinating! the use of jargons in this one video is a bit dense though

[@wiandryadiwasistio2062]

fish: i am a better fish than _you_ are humans: i fish better than you are tho

[@hcn6708]

How much oxygen can a fish extract per body weight vs. a similarly sized mammal

[@adarshs6200]

As a blobfish myself, I'm quite offended at how my species are represented in the video.

[@yelnatsch517]

But how do the fish prevent infections or other pathogens from passing into their bloodstream? I think that’s the bigger achievement. Imagine running a marathon in the worst smog conditions.

[@Jessica_of_Kpop]

Why does the thumbnail is different from the title🤔🤔?

[@SarimDeLaurec]

Poorblob fish. Depicted how he looks after rapid decompression instead of how he looks like in his habitat. :(

[@kiuk_kiks]

Someone caught it too 😂

[@l.n.3372]

It seems like Ted Ed deleted my comment. But I pointed this out to them a few hours ago.

[@kristianwilliams441]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that caught this. Blobfish just look like pretty normal fish at their proper depth!

[@arc7495]

we are now breathing manually because of this video

[@salm9211]

If humans have gills they would also colonize the oceans and fight for territory. They would also build humongous infrastructures that would extract everything that is valuable in the waters until it's all depleted.

[@jimmytimmy3680]

That's if capitalism remained. Once we overcome it, we will not be as wasteful.

[@baccarethman3272]

We are literally the real monsters

[@soIzec]

The only issue that would remain is the fact that pressure difference at sea level and even just a few meters underwater is quite big

[@hamilton9076]

Fortunately for most fish, there're no humans in the water

[@joecota2644]

@@hamilton9076 unfortunately that hasnt stop from over fishing and annihilation of habitat. Humans excell at murder even if they arent native to a habitat

[@nappy_22]

“If I were a man with gills, I would be The Deep.”

[@gregoryfenn1462]

Why does your 3:26 image include whales 🐋 and an octopus 🐙 ?

[@rduckyjake]

I definitely misread this as, "How do girls work?" while scrolling too fast. I guess this is good too.

[@Mcwollybob]

Blobfish don't look like that. Blobfish only look like that when they're brought to the surface and destroyed by the air pressure change. I already knew that quite a few of your videos get stuff wrong, particularly your videos about weight science where you demand weight loss despite that not at all being evidence-based practice, but come on. The pressure difference of the ocean and land is such an important aspect of the topic of this video that you dedicated a whole section of this video to it. And yet you went through the entire animation process with likely multiple quality assurance checks and never realized you animated a pressure-killed fish swimming alive and happy in its natural, correctly-pressured environment??

[@biswajitguru9421]

You are right

[@403.FORBIDDEN]

It's not the air pressure underwater it's hydrostatic pressure ☝️🤓

[@J1M95]

Lol you havent seen me breath

[@michaelpichael6693]

I believe the term is “drinking”

[@globin3477]

You forgot to mention that air-breathing isn't unique to lungfish. Lots of fish, both freshwater and saltwater, can do it: For example, Bettas are freshwater fish that can breathe air. Meanwhile, Oceanic Tarpons can also breathe air. Having done a bit of further reading, it seems that most air-breathing fish do not use lungs to breathe air, but instead breathe through their skin like amphibians, or breathe via a labyrinth organ, which seems to be a modified gill arch that is better able to pull oxygen from the air (provided it is wet.)

[@user-sp8sw7vt5k]

In addition to gills, fish like gouramis and bettas also have an organ called a labyrinth that functions like a lung. I don't know if that's what the lungfish has but labyrinths weren't mentioned by name in the video

[@globin3477]

Lungfish are very different from gouramis. Gouramis, like most fish, are ray-finned fish, whereas lungfish are a much smaller group of lobe-finned fish (like coelacanths) that split off a long time ago. (Notably, lungfish are the fish most closely related to tetrapods like amphibians, reptiles, and mammals.) Gouramis also do not use lungs to breathe air; instead, they have a different structure called a labyrinth organ.

[@bimonnongsiej]

Trivia - Name me the richest fish.

[@doanthuthuy23]

I really want to know how the animator make this video 🥹 i want to learn how to make motion video like this

[@CharlotteXMoon]

Are there different types of coral that turn carbon dioxide into oxygen again?

[@Becky_Cooling]

2:30 CAN SOMEONE RESCUE THAT POOR FISH!

[@ramiere1412]

when i was a kid i always thought they broke the oxygen out of the h20.

[@garg4531]

Same here!

[@charmh.422]

No worries bro, after turning 40, my eyes aren't 20/20 anymore

[@Tyler_18_]

Oh yeah? Well what’s in my air fryer right now? Not a human that’s for sure!

[@bhavyapal]

Considering the fact that 21% of air is oxygen but there is only a small amount of oxygen in water , we don't need to be more effective at getting oxygen but fishes have to be

[@leminator13]

Thought the title said: How do girls work? I still stayed for the fish.

[@earthling_parth]

That is a mystery still unsolved and will probably remain that way for a long time.

[@Atlatonia]

As a girl, we will *never* expose the way we work.

[@timothytumusiime2903]

That's a good lad 👍😅

[@shradhalala]

😂same

[@1.4142]

too much reddit

[@beatriceottilie3655]

I GOT RICH DOING THIS.

[@beatriceottilie3655]

To attain wealth, the first step is figuring out your goaIs and pIans, with the aid of a financiaI pIanner and following through with inteIIigent pIans, you will gain attain wealth and as weII enjoy the benefits of managing your finance.

[@beatriceottilie3655]

My decision on my finances gained so much (gathered over 1M in 2yrs) with heIp of my financiaI pIanner. Got my 3rd house yesterday and, hoping to retire soon.

[@beatriceottilie3655]

Get to her, if you care…

[@beatriceottilie3655]

Elizabeth Green Hunts

[@alexasecas5930]

Good I got here. Big Thanks

[@auro1986]

why fish haven't finished oxygen from ocean if they breathe more and faster than humans? why hasn't anyone made artifical gills so you don't have to carry oxygen tanks underwater?

[@garg4531]

Oxygen gets replenished. I remember hearing multiple times from difference sources that most of the oxygen we breathe comes from the ocean. And creating oxygen tanks is a lot simpler than having to create artificial gills.

[@knightshade6232]

Can fish separate oxygen from H20

[@ArvinrajApplasamy]

How do the fish prevent osmosis damage through their gills when they breathe? Sea water is very salty and can pull moisture out of their bloodstream.

[@garg4531]

I remember hearing about this in another video. I think it was something along the lines of saltwater fish constantly taking in water and freshwater fish constantly excreting it in order to maintain balance within their respective environments.

[@globin3477]

I think a part of it is that saltwater fish's bodies are actually much saltier than our bodies. In fact, I recently recall reading that freshwater fish typically have higher salt levels than the surrounding water. They have various biological salt pumps to maintain this lack of equilibrium. The reason there are no freshwater cephalopods is because cephalopods do not have any sort of salt pump, and would die through some combination of too much moisture in their bloodstream and loosing salt to the environment.

[@ginpachi1]

I read this as “How do girls work?”

[@Starboy_tw]

Where's my Water breathing potion?

[@abhay06976]

if the gills are so effective in pulling the oxygen, why can they not work out of water?

[@globin3477]

Some animals actually do have gills that work in the air- land crabs and woodlice, for example. These land gills are so specialized for air that they don't work underwater. In any case, this was answered in the video; Fish rely on the density of water to pull it through the gill covers via pressure differences. This method does not exert enough pressure to pull a continuous stream of air over the gills.

[@WhitePointerGaming]

3:26 the graphic shows two whales on it and an orca, all of which are mammals and not fish.

[@C345OFR]

Altogether now: "We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine!"

[@_mortiam]

Breathing frequency heavily depends on the size of an animal, so the comparison of how often a human breaths and how often "most fish" breath, really has no meaning. Would have been interesting how often a fish of comparable size breaths.

[@thoraero]

I agree that's gills must be more efficient. But fishes take in more oxygen than us???

[@0mnom519]

Watching this while eating tilapia 😂😂😂

[@topherthe11th23]

So, how did lungs evolve? From gills, or from something else? I ask because my impression that if an animal has evolved bones, and it has also evolved hearing, its hearing has evolved from bones that in earlier species were part of the jaw. But that if an animal has no bones, but has hearing, then its hearing evolved from completely different earlier structures.

[@globin3477]

lungs evolved in ancient fish as a way to deal with low oxygen levels in water. In most modern fish, the lung has evolved into a swim bladder, although a few species (most notably lungfish) still retain true lungs.

[@topherthe11th23]

@@globin3477 Thanks! So it's not related to the gill. Is it possible that you meant to say the "lung", (not the "gill") evolved into a swim-bladder?

[@globin3477]

@@topherthe11th23 Yes, I did. I will correct the mistake.

[@katherineknapp4370]

😊😊😊😊😊

[@FotiniKottarinou]

People don't walk by moving the right arm along with the right leg. It's the opposite. Other than that, great video!

[@aaronlosey7201]

We really need to fight the misconception that is what blobfish look like! They only look like that when removed from their high-pressure environment: suffering and slowly dying!

[@SC-zq6cu]

its because fish breathe like how we eat and we breathe like how a hydra eats

[@thermalnuclearwar]

that was fascinating

[@turdbomitch9007]

If the lung fish isn't the perfect example of evolution I don't know what is😅

[@MythicTales993]

Thank you for making such amazing content. Truly inspiring!

[@teainnit27]

3:30 Ted-ed animators love you to death, but a blobfish only looks like *that* outside the water. I really enjoyed this video regardless 😊

[@conor1498]

For the record Kipchoge didn’t run a sub 2 hour marathon he ran a carefully constructed marathon distance round a park with pacers and a pace car The official marathon record is 2:01 in Chicago

[@aresu3040]

Are you sure 71% Earth is covered in h2o? My search results say different

[@achmadramdhan3629]

That walking at 0:36 is not human!

[@awesomehpt8938]

Can a fish breath when it’s in my stomach though? 😋

[@emmanuelvillagra9972]

So The Deep is a Lungfish.

[@AecoYT]

Is there a particular reason why you would use the blobfish's corpse to depict it instead of its appearance when alive?

[@mikailhusni2017]

Those two fish in the land😢

[@sera-chan8194]

I thought the blob fish does not look like that but looks like a normal fish only appearing like a blob after caught because he was fished from such a deepth that the adjustment to the pressure difference in this short time is not possible resulting in the fish looking so squished. Or is this wrong? @TedEd

[@reshmaselvaraj]

The animations, though! 😍

[@kraqur]

Title card got me thinking this was the long lost manual on explaining women...

[@TheSupremeMisfit]

i mean...i have asthma, almost everything/everyone is better than me at breathing

[@Mamo_Rambo]

I always wondering: If I take a lot of head fish with their gills system connect, And cover my face with them, Will I Could breathe underwater?

[@globin3477]

I don't think so, unless you somehow surgically connect all those gills to your bloodstream. I don't think any research has been done on such a surgery, nor do I think there will be any work towards this. Even if you somehow managed to pull this off, you would probably find other problems underwater, as your body simply isn't built to deal with those pressures. For instance, I can't imagine it would be pleasant to have lungs completely full of seawater even if you can get oxygen via other means. In fact, that might actually do severe and permanent damage to your lung tissue.

[@Sunflowersarepretty]

I had a similar question in my mind a few days ago bout how do fishes breathe underwater. I got the answer. 😂

[@earthling_parth]

Of course Australian fish have gills *and* lungs.

[@MissMueslie]

💚 Thank you for your efforts. I really appreciate it. You are great!

[@aPCreations191]

Who made this mechanism of breathing?

[@tomp6685]

It's important if you have an aquarium to have an air stone and some aquatic plants to promote oxygenation and gas exchange.

[@FortunateJuice]

Very pleased to see a quote from Ryan Stiles. I watched Whose Line every week when I was a kiddo.

[@PitinPitufin]

Fish

[@zakatych]

English or Spanish?

[@Ceren-k-05-09]

Türkçe altayazı?hintçe bile koymuşsunuz

[@aidkik580]

Do you like fishsticks?

[@aldric3178]

TED: Fish respiratory system are very efficient. They need more air than us, they use more air than us, and they breath more frequently than us. Me: That doesn't sound very efficient...

[@garg4531]

Well the main reason they need more air (or rather oxygen) is because because there’s less of it in their environment, so they evolved to be able to take in as much of it as possible.

[@Discerned_]

Where can I get gill implants? 😅

[@Santiago3435.]

Beautiful animation and excellently explained!

[@crashcraftyt]

Am I the only one who read "GIRLS" in the title/thumbnail?

[@pvtwalllllly]

Fish and their gills had longer to evolve than land animals and their lungs. Give us another 100 million years and we will catch up. I promise you

[@mrtienphysics666]

one particular fish become amphibian

[@mrparkerdan]

i can't breath 😵

[@JG-zu5wc]

Fish muscles- are they stronger than humans (per whatever comparable) due to their “atmosphere” being a lot denser?

[@globin3477]

I don't think so, no. The main means fish use to deal with water density is just being incredibly smooth and streamlined.