Download or read book The Lung-Air Sac System of Birds written by John N. Maina and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2005-12-28 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In biology, few organs have been as elusive as the lung-air sac system of birds. Considerable progress has recently been made to fill the gaps in the knowledge. While summarizing and building on earlier observations and ideas, this book provides cutting-edge details on the development, structure, function, and the evolutionary design of the avian respiratory system. Outlining the mechanisms and principles through which biological complexity and functional novelty have been crafted in a unique gas exchanger, this account will provoke further inquiries on the many still uncertain issues. The specific goal here was to highlight the uniqueness of the design of the avian respiratory system and the factors that obligated it.