Encyclopedia > Hemolymph

  Article Content

Hemolymph

Hemolymph (or haemolymph) is the blood analogue used by those animals, such as all arthropods and most mollusks, that have an open circulatory system. In these animals there is no distinction between blood and interstitial fluid[?]. The liquid fills all of the interior (hemocoel[?]) of the body and surrounds all cells.

Hemolymph is composed of water, inorganic salts (mostly Na, Cl, K, Mg, and Ca), and organic compounds (mostly carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids).

There are free-floating cells, the hemocytes[?], within the hemolymph. They play a role in the arthropod immune system.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Reformed churches

... branch churches, some have split in turn. Only some of the continuing branches from the main bodies are listed here, with the year of their separation. Cumberland ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 37.8 ms