Human vs Animal Blood
Each animal species, including the human, has a specialized medium for the transportation of nutrients through the body to maintain the life of the body cells and organs. In addition, blood is important for many other functions including communication through chemical signalling, and maintaining the internal hydrostatic pressure that tally with the external environment. Human blood has many similarities with other mammalian blood, especially with primate blood, but the differences from other animals would be important to know. However, there are some specialties in human blood from mammalian blood, as well.
Human Blood
Human blood is mainly composed of three cell types known as red blood cells (aka RBC or Erythrocytes), white blood cells (aka WBC or Leukocytes), and thrombocytes (Platelets). These blood cells are present in the medium of the liquid plasma. It would be important to know that there are no nuclei present in the mature RBC. These enucleated RBCs have a characteristic shape. The absence of a nucleus is highly fascinating to study, as it aids in increasing the capacity of oxygen storage in blood. Haemoglobin is the oxygen-carrying compound present in RBCs, and it is red in colour that gives the overall colour for the entire blood tissue. The characteristic shape of RBCs and the absence of a nucleus increase the storage capacity of haemoglobin in the blood; thus, the efficiency of the function of blood is elevated in human blood.
White blood cells are important to maintain the health of the blood tissue as well as the overall health of the human. There are five types of leukocytes known as Eosinophil, Basophil, Neutrophil, Monocyte, and Lymphocytes. All the leukocytes are equipped with enzymes, to attack the foreign bodies that encounter the circulatory system.
Thrombocytes are important to manage the blood flow, as it coagulates the fractures created in the blood vessels. The presence and absence of the antigens, A and B, determine the blood type (A, B, AB, or O) of a particular human individual. The presence or absence of the Rhesus factor (Rh) is also important for the blood type to be positive or negative respectively. Since the human metabolic activities are always in the process, the human blood is always warm; hence, humans are warm-blooded animals.
Animal Blood
There is a great variability among blood of animals. However, many animals, especially primates and mammals, have many similarities in the components present in their blood with the humans. Nevertheless, the arthropod, molluscs, and some invertebrates have some considerably different blood from the mammals. Mammalian and avian bloods are always warm, as their metabolic activities are ever active, yet the bloods of other animals are cold unless heated occasionally.
Vertebrates usually have three types of blood cells known as erythrocytes, leukocytes, and thrombocytes; those are important as oxygen carriages, immunity, and blood flow maintenance respectively. Oxygen carriage in human blood is haemoglobin, but it varies in other animals. However, crocodiles have neither RBCs nor haemoglobin, and the erythrocytes of birds are nucleated. Different blood types based on the presence or absence of A, B, and Rhesus factor (Rh) are present in mammals but, not in lower animals. It would be important to state that the blood is not always circulated through the body via a closed vessel system, but the haemolymps in arthropods are an open system.
What is the difference between Human and Animal Blood?
• Human blood is always warm but not the blood in all the animals except mammals and birds.
• The percentages of the cell types in humans and other animals are different between each other.
• Humans have a closed and complete blood vessel system, whereas some animals have open and/or incomplete blood systems.
• The efficiency of function of the human blood is very high, which can be compared to other animals.