Question

Imagine the lungs and size of elephant . Is there any relation between body size and lungs size?

Answer 1

Yes the size of body an organism and size of lungs is related. According to the size of the animal, the requirement of oxygen depends. If the size is large, requirement of oxygen is more but rate of respiration is slow in bigger animals.So, their metabolism is also more. So, lungs of elephants are also bigger.

Answer 2

There are three areas from where the air can enter the elephant's body, its mouth, trunk and forehead(there are two internal nares there). Lungs are the most vital part of the respiratory system and there is a significant relationship between the body size and the size of lungs. Elephant's lungs are unique because other mammals usually share the same characteristics when it comes to lungs, they are located in the space between pleura which is a lubricated membrane.But in Elephants, there is not pleura or they do not have any pleura space for breathing, elephants breath out about an average of 310 liters of air per minute. The research was done in 1681 by a researcher who did an autopsy on a dead elephant and he was amazed after figuring out that elephant's respiratory system is very different to that of other four-legged animals, as their lungs are directly attached to the chest walls and there is no pleura in between and that is most probably because of the reason that elephants use their long trunks for sucking water when they need to drink the water.