Department of Radiology, Musculoskeletal Division, University of Utah Health Sciences Center, 50 North Medical Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA.
Anat Rec (Hoboken). 2012 Apr;295(4):699-714. doi: 10.1002/ar.22427. Epub 2012 Feb 17.
Using gross dissections and computed tomography we studied the lungs of juvenile American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis). Our findings indicate that both the external and internal morphology of the lungs is strikingly similar to the embryonic avian respiratory system (lungs + air sacs). We identified bronchi that we propose are homologous to the avian ventrobronchi (entobronchi), laterobronchi, dorsobronchi (ectobronchi), as well as regions of the lung hypothesized to be homologous to the cervical, interclavicular, anterior thoracic, posterior thoracic, and abdominal air sacs. Furthermore, we suggest that many of the features that alligators and birds share are homologous and that some of these features are important to the aerodynamic valve mechanism and are likely plesiomorphic for Archosauria.
我们通过大体解剖和计算机断层扫描研究了幼年美洲鳄（Alligator mississippiensis）的肺部。我们的研究结果表明，鳄类肺部的外部和内部形态与胚胎禽类呼吸系统（肺+气囊）惊人地相似。我们发现了一些支气管，我们认为这些支气管与禽类腹支气管（ventrobronchi，entobronchi）、侧支气管（lateralbronchi）、背支气管（dorsobronchi，ectobronchi）同源，此外，我们还推测肺的一些区域与颈气囊、锁骨间气囊、前胸气囊、后胸气囊和腹气囊同源。此外，我们认为鳄类和鸟类具有许多同源特征，其中一些特征对于气动瓣膜机制很重要，并且可能是恐龙类的原始特征。
