Zachary R Lewis, James Hanken

2017/1/1

Journal of anatomy

230

1

16-29

Abstract Nearly two thirds of the approximately 700 species of living salamanders are
lungless. These species respire entirely through the skin and buccopharyngeal mucosa.
Lung loss dramatically impacts the configuration of the circulatory system but the effects of
evolutionary lung loss on cardiac morphology have long been controversial. For example,
there is presumably little need for an atrial septum in lungless salamanders due to the
absence of pulmonary veins and the presence of a single source of mixed blood flowing ...