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The Excretory System. Chapter 45. An animal’s nitrogenous wastes are related to its body type and habitat. The metabolism of protein and nucleic acids produces ammonia Ammonia is a small and very toxic waste product Some animals excrete the ammonia directly
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The Excretory System Chapter 45
An animal’s nitrogenous wastes are related to its body type and habitat • The metabolism of protein and nucleic acids produces ammonia • Ammonia is a small and very toxic waste product • Some animals excrete the ammonia directly • Others convert it to urea or uric acid which are less toxic but require ATP to produce
Types of metabolic wastes • Ammonia • Most aquatic animals excrete ammonia • This doesn’t work for land animals since it is so toxic and requires large amounts of water • Urea • Excreted by most mammals and adult amphibians • 100,000 times less toxic than ammonia • Produced in the liver and carried to the kidneys by the blood • Uric acid • Excreted by land snails, insects, birds and reptiles • Eliminated in a paste-like form through the cloaca
Cells require a balance in water gain and loss • Osmoregulators expend energy to control their internal water concentrations • Many marine animals, all freshwater animals, terrestrial animals, and human • Osmoconformers are isoosmotic with their surroundings • Most marine invertebrates
Excretory Systems • Produce urine by refining a filtrate derived from body fluids • Two steps: • Filtration of body fluids • Modification of the filtrate
The Vertebrate Kidneys • Bean-shaped about 10 cm long • We have 2 • Blood enters each via the renal artery and exits via the renal vein • About 20% of the blood pumped by each heartbeat passes through the kidneys • Urine exits each kidney through a ureter, these drain into the urinary bladder • The bladder connects to the urethra – the tube that carries urine out of the body
Kidney Structure • Contain large numbers of non-segmented tubules • Also includes a dense capillary network associated with the tubules • Together these tubules and capillaries make up the nephron • Nephrons are the functional units of the kidney
The kidney can excrete hyper- or hypoosmotic urine as needed • When fluid intake is low, the body dehydrates and blood volume decreases – this causes the release of antidiruetic hormone which makes water be absorbed from the kidney and urine more concentrated • When fluid intake is high, the opposite occurs and large amounts of dilute urine is produced