Blood, a thing that creeps me out but makes me wonder,
Why do different organisms have different color blood? For instance, why do we have red blood and some, if not all, insects have green blood?
Different things are different colors, but blood is blood, or so I thought.
3 comments:
Most cells in vertebrate blood are red blood cells, which contain hemoglobin.Hemoglobin is an iron-containing protein that facilitates transportation of oxygen.Since most insects are small, their bodies have openings called tracheae that allow oxygen to be absorbed by tissues.An insect’s blood is also known as hemolymph, and it is this lack of hemoglobin that gives the blood of an insect its yellow color or appearance.Generally,when you squash an insect and see red liquid,it's not blood as we think, it's pigment from it's eyes.
Sources- www.mcwdn.org/Animals/Insect.html
Many organisms have different colored bloods because of the type of compound or respiratory pigment within the blood that transports oxygen from the lungs to the tissue. In humans, and other animals that are vertebrates, and some even invertebrates, an iron containing protein called hemoglobin is responsible for oxygen transport. Hemoglobin is a red colored pigment, therefore causes the blood to become red.
Some insects have green blood because, as you already know, our blood is made red from hemoglobin, but insects do not carry the hemoglobin compound and other gases that make human's and many animal's blood red. Overall, human's blood is red because of the effect of hemoglobin, and the blood of an insect is green because it lacks hemoglobin and other gases that humans have, but insects do not.
By the way, here are my sources:
http://www.enotes.com/science-fact-finder/animal-world/do-all-animals-have-red-blood
and
http://www.chacha.com/question/why-do-some-insects-have-green-blood
~~~ njguy320
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