Air Breathing Aquatic Animals
In addition to water breathing animals, e.g., fishes, mollusks etc., the term "aquatic animal" can be applied to air-breathing aquatic or sea mammals such as those in the order Cetacea (whales), which cannot survive on land, as well as four-footed mammals like the river otter (Lontra canadensis) and beavers (family Castoridae).
Aquatic animals include for example the seabirds, such as gulls (family Laridae), pelicans (family Pelecanidae), and albatrosses (family Diomedeidae), and most of the Anseriformes (ducks, swans and geese).
Amphibious and amphibiotic animals, like frogs (the order Anura), while they do require water, are separated into their own environmental classification. The majority of amphibians (class Amphibia) have an aquatic larval stage, like a tadpole, but then live as terrestrial adults, and may return to the water to mate.
Certain fish also evolved to breathe air to survive oxygen-deprived water, such as arapaima (family Osteoglossidae) and walking catfish (Clariidae).
Read more about this topic: Aquatic Animal
Famous quotes containing the words air, breathing and/or animals:
“Speak the speech ... trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it ... I had as lief the town crier had spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Of all the words mentioned in language, there is not one that I hate more than the word “right.” Is it your right that your field prospers? That you don’t drop dead this very instant? Are living and breathing your right? As far as I can see, nothing but grace and blessing fill the universe, and these worms talk about right?”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Of all animals the boy is the most unmanageable, inasmuch as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)