From Salameandering:
Lungs are what enabled the ancestors of all tetrapods to climb out of the Devonian soup some 400 million years ago … Since they utilize the vast surface area of alveoli for gas exchange, rather than the relatively limited amount of surface area provided by a creature’s skin …
- An average human adult’s skin has a surface area of roughly 16-21 square feet
- whereas the surface area of the alveoli inside that same human is about 100 square yards!
Amphibians are neither large, nor particularly active, … amphibians of the order Anura (ie: frogs) evolved four mechanisms for breathing:
- through gills
- via lungs
- through their very permeable skin
- through sensitive skin inside the mouth.
Lungless salamanders (2/3 of all salamander diversity) took things one step further and got rid of the primitive lungs all together, to rely solely on cutaneous gas exchange.
Read more at Salameandering Into Cutaneous Respiration.
Cucamelons: They’re grape-sized watermelons that taste like cucumbers with a tinge of lime
They’re native to Mexico and Central America. They also go by the following names: mouse melon, Mexican sour gherkin, Mexican miniature watermelon and Mexican sour cucumber. [homegrown-revolution.co.uk]
You can buy the seeds here: $2.50 for 25-35 seeds. [rareseeds.com] Read more.
[@buzzfeeddiy h/t @HaywoodZhablome]
Student living got you down?
Check out these 18 amazing snacks that you can make in a cup in the microwave! Cheap and easy these are the perfect snacks!
the worst part of creating an original character is figuring out their last name
I go through cemeteries and jot down the most interesting ones.
That’s actually a really good idea thank you
