Q. Assertion : All terrestrial mammals are air breathers.
Reason : Because of terrestrial habitat, they have well‐developed lungs for air breathing.

 1962  192 AIIMSAIIMS 1998Animal Kingdom Report Error

Solution:

All terrestrial mammals are air breathers. Because of terrestrial habitat, they have well developed lungs for air breathing. As external respiration takes place in terrestrial animals, three conditions are necessary for this purpose, (i) there should be a large vascular surface with thin blood capillaries, (ii) The membrane of the respiratory surface should be thin and should remain moist (iii) there should be a respiratory pigment and a respiratory medium. All these purposes are successfully served by lungs. Thus well developed lungs make the terrestrial animals air breathers.