Animals with two hearts. Blue blood and three hearts. Why is the octopus called the "sea aristocrat"

18.10.2019

One to help the other

In March 2009, it became known about a unique surgical operation performed at the Heart Institute in São Paulo (Brazil).

A fifty-three-year-old patient, whose heart was already refusing to pump blood, was transplanted into the right side of the chest with a donor heart, leaving his own in the same place. The "new" heart was connected by blood vessels to the "old" one.

It was reported that the operation lasted 12 hours and that the patient's condition was stable. However, doctors expressed concern that the patient had a 50% chance of survival. "The next 72 hours will be decisive," said surgeon Alfredo Fiorelli, who performed the transplant. And he added that in the current situation, a traditional transplant would not be recommended, so the only alternative is to “implant” a second heart and keep the patient in such an artificially created state for about two months. There is hope that the donor heart will still take over the main functions of its own, which will beat more and more slowly ...

There were many questions, however. If everything goes according to plan, will the “main” heart need to be removed later? And where does such confidence come from that it will beat more and more slowly? Or maybe, over time, it will, on the contrary, begin to work normally?

My heart is rested and...

It turns out that back in 1996 in London, the famous cardiac surgeon Magdy Yakub transplanted a donor heart to a two-year-old girl Hannah Clark, leaving her own in place. At that time, due to cardiomyopathy, it was already twice the usual size, and doctors predicted that in a maximum of a year the heart would not withstand the load. After the operation, the girl had to take medication to suppress the rejection of the donor heart and everything seemed to be going well with Hannah. So 10 years have passed.

However, in 2006, she suddenly began this same rejection reaction. The donor heart had to be urgently removed and tried to connect his own. Surgeons have never done anything like this before. They were advised by the same Magdy Yakub, already retired. And then the surprises began!

Instead of 8 hours, the operation took 4; instead of several months, Hannah spent in the ward intensive care only 5 days. She quickly recovered and soon even began to dream of some kind of sports competition. It turns out that the girl’s own heart has had a good rest over the years, gained strength and “learned” to work normally. The donor "double" became simply superfluous, so the body began to reject it!

Two in one

But it happens that a person is born with two hearts. Back in 1905, the thirty-five-year-old American carpenter A. Durr placed an announcement in one of the newspapers that he was ready to bequeath his body and his two hearts to someone who would immediately pay him good money. Durr was a big man, which experts confirmed, and one even offered $10,000 for the right to extract one of the two hearts while alive. But the carpenter refused, fearing that he would not have time to enjoy this money if something went wrong.

In Russia, too, they have known about this phenomenon for a long time. In 1911, a reference book on surgery was published in Yekaterinburg, in which there is a diagram with the caption: “The Ognivtsev phenomenon. A man with two hearts." But who is he, this Vladimir Ognivtsev? So, a rural paramedic, whose fate is not even really known.

But in January 2004 Russian newspapers told about a resident of Ingushetia from the village of Inarki, Malgobek district. Until the age of forty-seven, Zyaudin Yandiev did not even think that he had two hearts. And although some doctor told him this as a child, Zyaudin soon forgot about the second heart. He served in the army, worked, visited doctors more than once, but no one noticed an amazing anomaly, out of habit applying a stethoscope to the left side of his chest. And only in 2003, when he ended up in a hospital with blood poisoning, “the cardiologist literally jumped in surprise when, during a cardiogram, one of the electrodes abruptly moved to the right side and froze,” recalls 3. Yandiev. Here he was examined in full!

One is good, but two is better!

Note that in most cases these phenomenal people do not even know for years that they have two hearts. Why? Because they don’t go to doctors - good health. Even if the second heart is not in place. Thus, in July 2004, doctors in Tbilisi examined one year old baby Gogu Diasamidze from Batumi: one heart is in his chest, and the second is in abdominal cavity. But even in this case, the body has adapted!

There is also a case in Ukraine, when a “tumor” was found in a fifty-year-old man, which actually turned out to be a second heart! This man had never gone to the doctors before - everything was in order with his health.

In general, it seems that the body "does not mind" two hearts! Moreover, a child with a "spare" heart grows more resilient and strong, it is easier to cope with physical activity(and there is something for biologists, geneticists, futurologists to think about).

But, in this case, why didn’t nature take care of duplicating this most important organ in the course of evolution for all of us? After all, we have two lungs, kidneys or eyes! And the heart is one. And the power of this "pump" is not so great. He is able to push blood into all vessels down to the smallest capillaries, of which we have 100-160 billion in the body, but it is difficult for him to deliver venous blood back. But it turns out that numerous “mini-hearts” scattered throughout our body help the heart to push the blood. These are muscles.

According to Nikolai Arinchin, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus, we have 1008 such "hearts" (according to the number of skeletal muscles). And if the muscles become decrepit, the heart becomes very hard. Moral: if you want to live - help your heart, train all your muscles!

Genes and chromosomes?

Recently, Elvira Chernikova began to look for her cousin. Her aunt Valentina Dedyukhina once had a son weighing 4.5 kg in Irkutsk - a healthy and strong baby. The gynecologist who delivered the baby said, however, that the child was not viable because he had two hearts and persuaded the woman to write a refusal. After that, both the child and that gynecologist (childless, by the way) disappeared from the hospital - maybe the doctor adopted the baby. And after some time, my sister Dedyukhina also had a son with two hearts. “Now he is an adult,” says Elvira, “his heart works like clockwork, the rhythm is clear and strong. So we decided to look: maybe our cousin will be found somewhere in Irkutsk?

This is what happens? "Family" phenomenon? Maybe some recessive (ancient) gene worked for both sisters? Maybe once all our ancestors had two hearts? It is no coincidence that a human embryo also has two hearts at first, but then they combine into one (the eyes, by the way, are the opposite: at first the embryo has one eye, then it divides into two).

Susana Kachel, an anthropologist at Rutgers University, argues that the one-heart, two-lung system began to emerge about 300 million years ago, when aquatic radish collectives first began to crawl onto land (by the way, the octopus still has three hearts). And, perhaps, it is no coincidence that the human embryo at first resembles a fish, an amphibian, and only much later - a mammal, which in the course of evolution replaced each other until they turned into Homo sapiens? And our genetic memory is still no, no, and it will give out two hearts - so to speak, "in the old fashioned way"!

The internal organs of a glass frog, including its heart

Of course, the human heart is an amazing miracle, thanks to which we live, it is a vessel of the soul, and so on. However, is it capable of self-healing? Does it pump exceptionally pure blood? Is it possible to freeze it and then bring it back to life?

The hearts of some animal species are capable of this and more. We have researched animal world, ranging from the depths of the ocean to the summit of the Himalayas, for heart wonders, and here's what we've been able to discover.

Insects

viscera earthworm, including his five pseudo-hearts

Earthworm

Depending on which point of view you hold, earthworms either have five "hearts" or no heart at all. Although they do not have the usual muscular organ with multiple chambers, they do have five special blood vessels called "aortic arches". Contracting, the aortic arches pump blood throughout the body of the worm. So what if you accidentally hurt your heart earthworm, don't worry - he has four more pieces exactly the same.

Cockroach

The human heart consists of four chambers, each of which performs a specific function - if something happens to one of them, something irreparable will happen. In turn, the cockroach heart has twelve to thirteen chambers, which are arranged in a row and are driven by a separate group of muscles. This means that if one camera stops functioning, nothing will happen to the cockroach.

hoverfly

hoverfly

Hoverfly flies love to soar in the air above the flowers, collecting precious pollen. Helping them do this is what is essentially the heart that pumps blood to the head and chest where are oral apparatus and muscles responsible for flapping wings.

Fish and their neighbors

Danio rerio

In this small beautiful fish the heart of a real superhero beats. In 2002, scientists found that if up to 20% of the lower ventricle was removed from the zebrafish, the fish would be able to restore the lost tissue within two months. This is due to specialized muscle cells that are capable of not only regenerating, but also stimulating the growth of new blood vessels. By studying the self-healing hearts of zebrafish, scientists hope to apply what they have learned to human organs.

spiky-nosed whiteblood

spiky-nosed whiteblood

The spiky whitefish lives in the Southern Ocean at a depth of one kilometer. How does she manage to deal with the cold? Thanks in part to her heart, which is much larger and about five times stronger than a normal heart. aquarium fish. The blood of the spiky whitefish also lacks hemoglobin, the red protein responsible for binding oxygen. Instead, thanks to low temperatures, oxygen dissolves directly in the plasma of the spiky whitefish, which causes the transparency of its blood.

Cuttlefish Anatomy

Cuttlefish

Like all cephalopods, the cuttlefish has three hearts - one heart each for a pair of gills and one heart for the rest of the body. Research results show that cuttlefish living in cold waters have larger size hearts than those that dwell in warm waters; this is due to an increase in aerobic capacity. In addition, their blood contains hemocyanin (instead of hemoglobin), which gives it a blue color. Cuttlefish are true aristocrats.

Birds

Hummingbird captured in flight

You have probably heard that hummingbirds make 15 flaps of their wings in one second - and all thanks to the possession of a unique heart, which contracts up to 21 times per second and provides fast delivery of oxygen to muscle mitochondria.

mountain goose

Migration is not an easy process for all birds, but mountain geese are the least fortunate in this regard: their route runs right over the Himalayas. These birds regularly fly over mountain passes at an altitude of 6000 meters above sea level - and all thanks to the fact that they have an unusual strong heart associated with the muscles that are involved in flight, a set of additional capillaries.

emperor penguins

Emperor penguins are famous for their soft hearts. Most your couple time emperor penguins spend taking care of each other and their offspring. Less well known, but very important, is the fact that emperor penguin hearts work extremely slowly, especially during immersion in water: they make about 15 contractions per minute, cutting off the blood supply to all (except vital) organs and providing the body with just that much oxygen. required for deep sea hunting.

Reptiles and amphibians

forest frog

The hearts of many animals, from bears to marmots, slow down when they hibernate, but as far as we know, wood frogs may stop beating altogether during this period. In winter, these frogs essentially turn into "icicles": thanks to a special solution in their cells, they can suspend metabolic activity and allow most of the water in their body to solidify without any consequences. Their hearts take it for granted; they stop beating when the world freezes, and resume activity when it warms up.

glass frog

All frogs have a three-chambered heart with two atria that receive blood from other parts of the body and one ventricle that shunts it back. glass frogs are unique in that you can observe this whole process with your own eyes - their translucent skin on the belly allows a person to see the work of the heart and blood vessels inside these amphibians.

The python waits for its prey

Python

After a python has a good "lunch", its heart increases in size by 40 percent due to fatty acids received with food. (This speeds up digestion, a process that can take up to several days for pythons.)

mammals

Heart blue whale which is kept in the Royal Ontario Museum

Blue whale

Popular legend has it that a blue whale's heart is the size of a car, and a human can easily crawl through its aorta. This is not entirely true. According to Jacqueline Miller, the heart of a blue whale is the size of "a small golf cart or a circus electric car with a bumper," and only one human head will fit in its aorta.

Giraffe

The giraffe's heart has to fight against the pressure of gravity every day to deliver blood to the head of this long-necked animal. He manages to do this thanks to very thick and strong walls and blood vessels that expand and contract at a rapid pace. As the giraffe's neck lengthens, the blood vessels also undergo changes, becoming thicker.

Cheetah

The heart of a cheetah at rest beats about 120 beats per minute - about the same as the heart of a person who is jogging. While the maximum human heart rate is approximately 220 beats per minute - and it takes some time to reach it, the cheetah's "heart rocket" is capable of reaching a rate of up to 250 beats per minute in just a few seconds. This change is so intense that it allows the cheetah to run at top speed for only about 20 seconds, after which the predator's organs begin to overheat and become damaged.

Octopuses are one of the most mysterious sea creatures. Many people wonder how many hearts an octopus has.

Octopuses are one of the most mysterious sea creatures.

No place on Earth contains as many diverse and outlandish creatures as the seas and oceans. Many inhabitants of the seabed are the oldest representatives of the planet, much older than man and all animals. One such creature is the octopus. cephalopod, the size of which can reach 7-8 m.

Octopuses can be different. So, their size varies from a few centimeters to 8 m. The weight of the largest octopus was more than 200 kg, although usually it does not exceed 15-20 kg.

No place on Earth contains as many diverse and outlandish creatures as the seas and oceans.

The question of its color can be confusing: this mollusk is different colors Moreover, they are able to change their appearance almost instantly. Therefore, a very different description can be applied to an octopus.

They have a soft oval body, similar to a ball, dressed in something resembling a mantle - a skin-muscle bag, which can be smooth or pimply, depending on the type of mollusk. On the body are 8 tentacles that surround the mouth of the octopus.

The mollusk catches its prey thanks to special suction cups located on inside tentacles. There are a lot of these suction cups - several hundred on one "hand".

Tentacles are needed not only to grab prey: they also have visual analyzers that allow you to assess the environment.

Many inhabitants of the seabed are the oldest representatives of the planet, much older than humans and all animals.

The mollusk is the owner of outstanding eyes. They are huge and occupy about 10% of the entire body, the size of the eyeball can reach 40 cm. anatomical structure The eyes of octopuses are similar to human ones, but they still have a slightly different scheme for perceiving the world.

The only solid part of the body of the octopus is its beak, which looks like a bird. It is he who can become a limitation for the mollusk in trying to crawl into any hole, since the rest of his body is so soft that it can penetrate into any gap.

The internal structure of the octopus has always been of interest to people, since many people know the fact that it has several hearts. Therefore, a common question is how many hearts an octopus has. This mollusk has 3 heart muscles.

This peculiarity of them is explained by the fact that they have a very strong blood resistance, which one heart simply could not cope with. Thus, this mollusk is the only representative of the animal world that has as many as 3 hearts.

Octopus Volcano (video)

Features of the cardiac system

One of the 3 hearts of the octopus is the main one - it drives blood throughout the body. It is larger in size than the others and consists of two atria and a small ventricle. This heart bears the main burden of ensuring the vital activity of the body.

The other two cardiac organs can be called complementary - they are smaller in size, are located near two gills and are muscular expansions of blood vessels. They help the main organ move blood around the body. Because of the peculiarity of their work, they are also called "gill". They distill venous blood, which is enriched with oxygen in the gills and then enters the atria of the main organ.

Thus, it is possible to distinguish varieties of cardiac organs in octopuses:

main;
auxiliary.

However miscellaneous work does not affect the frequency of their beating - the octopus has three hearts that beat in the same rhythm. This cannot but cause admiration - 3 hearts of a huge clam, beating in one step. The beat frequency depends on the temperature of the water: colder water the slower the heart beats. On average, the frequency is reduced to 40 times per minute.

The octopus also has only its own blood, which has an amazing blue color, as well as high intelligence proven by many studies. So 3 hearts distill not just blood, but a blue liquid.

Worth mentioning special weapon octopuses - ink bomb. The mollusk has in its body special body- an ink bag filled with a liquid that the octopus throws out in case of danger. As a result, an ink curtain is formed, allowing you to hide from any enemy that might attack the octopus.

Giant octopus (video)

Attention, only TODAY!

Mixina - rare representative vertebrates that do not have a backbone. The hagfish has a skeleton - in the form of a skull. But there is no spine. These creatures are classified as lower vertebrates. That is, they are no longer worms, but also not fish - the predecessors of fish.

Hagfish settle in subtropical and temperate waters throughout the oceans. In Russia, for example, they can sometimes even be found in the Barents Sea. But greatest variety species seen in West Bank North America.

According to research, over the past 300 million years, hagfish have not changed much. The primal appearance of the hagfish, which has long gone out of fashion among fish, and disgusting eating habits have led people to regard the hagfish as one of the most disgusting sea monsters. But this is all only due to the fact that it is less similar to us than others, to modern creatures.

The body of the hagfish resembles the body of a huge worm, half a meter in length. Goliath mixina sometimes reaches a size of 127 centimeters. Mixina is almost the only creature on Earth that can tie itself into a knot.

Now let's see what the mixin has inside. She has four hearts, two brains and one nostril. But hagfish have the same number of eyes as ours, vertebrates have two. True, they are quite primitive. Mixins can see light with these eyes, but not a specific image.

In some hagfish species, there is only one male per hundred females. Representatives of other species are completely hermaphrodites. So nothing threatens the survival of hagfish, even if "the men are transferred."

The key to high survival is also unpretentiousness in food. Hagfish eats carrion or dying animals. As a rule, it pulls out pieces of meat, makes a hole and thus penetrates into the creature. And eats him up. Divers often see the gnawed skeletons of some dolphins with a thick hagfish inside. Sometimes hagfish eat fish caught in a fishing net, which are almost unable to move.

Mixin is eaten in Japan and Korea.

Children raised by animals