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Drinking Rates and Gill Ionic Turnover in relation to External Salinities in the Eel

Abstract

SMITH1 has shown that seawater teleosts maintain their water balance by drinking water and eliminating the divalent ions really and the monovalent ions extra-renally. Keys2 demonstrated that the extra-renal route of excretion is most probably the gills. On the other hand, Smith3 and Krogh4 say that “the freshwater teleost apparently does not drink water but absorbs it through the oral membranes or perhaps through the gills”. This statement has been challenged by several authors5,6, but no quantitative evaluation of the drinking rate was attempted.

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MAETZ, J., SKADHAUGE, E. Drinking Rates and Gill Ionic Turnover in relation to External Salinities in the Eel. Nature 217, 371–373 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1038/217371a0

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