Title
Pulmonary circulation of llama at high and low altitudes
Date Issued
01 January 1982
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Publisher(s)
BMJ Publishing Group
Abstract
The authors have studied the pulmonary circulation of three closely related animals, the llama, alpaca, and guanaco. The mean pulmonary arterial pressure of 12 llamas and one alpaca indigenous of high altitude in the Andes was found to be slightly but significantly higher than that of three llamas and three guanacos born and bred at low altitude in England. On the other hand, the medial thickness of the muscular pulmonary arteries and the relative weights of the two ventricles were the same in three llamas and one alpaca at high altitude as they were in one llama and two guanacos at low altitude. It is concluded that the pulmonary vasoconstrictive response to hypoxia, while present, is greatly reduced in this species and it is suggested that this may have taken place by evolutionary adaptation.
Start page
38
End page
45
Volume
37
Issue
1
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Zoología, Ornitología, Entomología, ciencias biológicas del comportamiento
Ciencia veterinaria
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-0020061526
Source
Thorax
ISSN of the container
00406376
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus