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Circulatory System

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The Circulatory System

The circulatory system transports materials throughout an animal’s body in a fluid called blood. In mammals, as in other vertebrates, blood is confined to a closed system of vessels and is distinct from the liquid (interstitial fluid) that surrounds the cells of the surrounding tissue. Blood is pumped away from the heart and courses through vessels of decreasing diameter that branch into the organs and tissues of the body: these vessels are arteries, arterioles, and capillaries, respectively. At the level of the capillaries, the walls of the vessels are very thin and porous. At the capillary bed, materials carried by the blood are either actively transported across the endothelium or simply diffuse into the interstitial fluid along a concentration gradient. Materials from the interstitial fluid can flow into the capillaries for transport away from the tissues. As blood leaves the capillaries, it travels through vessels of increasing diameter, venules and veins that join one another to complete the circuit back to the heart. Regardless of the materials conveyed in the blood, vessels are characterized by the direction in which they carry material, arteries and arterioles away from the heart and toward the capillaries; veins and venules away from the capillaries and toward the heart.

Unlike many vertebrates, birds and mammals possess a four-chambered heart. The evolution of a four-chambered heart is thought to be an adaptation brought about by the high metabolic demands of warm-blooded animals (endotherms). Endotherms expend roughly ten times the amount of energy compared to “cold-blooded” animals (ectotherms) of the same body mass. The four chambered heart allows for the complete separation of oxygenated blood from oxygen-depleted blood in a circulatory system that has two separate and independent circuits. One circuit pumps blood to the

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