• Question: what are the air sacs in the lungs called?

    Asked by to Andrei, Ekbal, Gemma, Helen, Ruth on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Gemma Marsden

      Gemma Marsden answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      Hi gargank,

      The airsacs in the lungs are called alveoli.

      Gemma

    • Photo: Helen Gath

      Helen Gath answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      Just want to add to Gemma’s answers that the lungs are very clever for all sorts of reasons, but their best feature is that the alveoli are lots of round sacs, they have a large surface area. For example, If you took a football and flattened it out it would cover a larger area than you would have thought just looking at a normal football. Because alveoli are crucial for absorbing oxygen from our the air we breathe into our lungs, the larger the surface area, the more oxygen we can absorb into our blood.
      Our lungs may not look very big, but in fact, if you flattened out all the little sacs inside you would get a huge surface area! What a very efficient system our body is!

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