page_title: Respiratory system
section_title: Birds
hierarchical_section_title: Respiratory system / Birds
context_page_description: The respiratory system is a biological system consisting of specific organs and structures used for gas exchange in animals and plants. The anatomy and physiology that make this happen varies greatly, depending on the size of the organism, the environment in which it lives and its evolutionary history. In land animals the respiratory surface is internalized as linings of the lungs. Gas exchange in the lungs occurs in millions of small air sacs called alveoli in mammals and reptiles, but atria in birds. These microscopic air sacs have a very rich blood supply, thus bringing the air into close contact with the blood. These air sacs communicate with the external environment via a system of airways, or hollow tubes, of which the largest is the trachea, which branches in the middle of the chest into the two main bronchi. These enter the lungs where they branch into progressively narrower secondary and tertiary bronchi that branch into numerous smaller tubes, the bronchioles. In birds the bronchioles are termed parabronchi. It is the bronchioles, or parabronchi that generally open into the microscopic alveoli in mammals and atria in birds.
context_section_description: The respiratory system of birds differs significantly from that found in mammals. Firstly, they have rigid lungs which do not expand and contract during the breathing cycle. Instead an extensive system of air sacs (Fig. 15) distributed throughout their bodies act as the bellows drawing environmental air into the sacs, and expelling the spent air after it has passed through the lungs (Fig. 18). Birds also do not have diaphragms or pleural cavities.
  Bird lungs are smaller than those in mammals of comparable size, but the air sacs account for 15% of the total body volume, compared to the 7% devoted to the alveoli which act as the bellows in mammals.
  Inhalation and exhalation are brought about by alternately increasing and decreasing the volume of the entire thoraco-abdominal cavity (or coelom) using both their abdominal and costal muscles. During inhalation the muscles attached to the vertebral ribs (Fig. 17) contract angling them forwards and outwards. This pushes the sternal ribs, to which they are attached at almost right angles, downwards and forwards, taking the sternum (with its prominent keel) in the same direction (Fig. 17). This increases both the vertical and transverse diameters of thoracic portion of the trunk. The forward and downward movement of, particularly, the posterior end of the sternum pulls the abdominal wall downwards, increasing the volume of that region of the trunk as well. The increase in volume of the entire trunk cavity reduces the air pressure in all the thoraco-abdominal air sacs, causing them to fill with air as described below.
  During exhalation the external oblique muscle which is attached to the sternum and vertebral ribs  anteriorly, and to the pelvis (pubis and ilium in Fig. 17) posteriorly (forming part of the abdominal wall) reverses the inhalatory movement, while compressing the abdominal contents, thus increasing the pressure in all the air sacs. Air is therefore expelled from the respiratory system in the act of exhalation.
  During inhalation air enters the trachea via the nostrils and mouth, and continues to just beyond the syrinx at which point the trachea branches into two primary bronchi, going to the two lungs (Fig. 16).  The primary bronchi enter the lungs to become the intrapulmonary bronchi, which give off a set of parallel branches called ventrobronchi and, a little further on, an equivalent set of dorsobronchi (Fig. 16). The ends of the intrapulmonary bronchi discharge air into the posterior air sacs at the caudal end of the bird. Each pair of  dorso-ventrobronchi is connected by a large number of parallel microscopic air capillaries (or parabronchi) where gas exchange occurs (Fig. 16). As the bird inhales, tracheal air flows through the intrapulmonary bronchi into the posterior air sacs, as well as into the dorsobronchi, but not into the ventrobronchi (Fig. 18). This is due to the bronchial architecture which directs the inhaled air away from the openings of the ventrobronchi, into the continuation of the intrapulmonary bronchus towards the dorsobronchi and posterior air sacs. From the dorsobronchi the inhaled air flows through the parabronchi (and therefore the gas exchanger) to the ventrobronchi from where the air can only escape into the expanding anterior air sacs. So, during inhalation, both the posterior and anterior air sacs expand, the posterior air sacs filling with fresh inhaled air, while the anterior air sacs fill with "spent" (oxygen-poor) air that has just passed through the lungs.
  During exhalation the pressure in the posterior air sacs (which were filled with fresh air during inhalation) increases due to the contraction of the oblique muscle described above. The aerodynamics of the interconnecting openings from the posterior air sacs to the dorsobronchi and intrapulmonary bronchi ensures that the air leaves these sacs in the direction of the lungs (via the dorsobronchi), rather than returning down the intrapulmonary bronchi (Fig. 18). From the dorsobronchi the fresh air from the posterior air sacs flows through the parabronchi (in the same direction as occu
caption: Fig. 18 Inhalation-exhalation cycle in birds.