• Question: Can any living thing live without oxygen?

    Asked by lisaloo to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 24 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      Yep! They breathe by what’s called anaerobic respiration (i.e. respiration without oxygen). Sometimes you get bacteria in ponds that can live without air, which happens when algae covers the pond and stops fresh air mixing with the water.

      In fact, your body can respire for short periods of time without oxygen, too. If you run and you don’t breathe enough, your body respires in a way that produces lactic acid – which is why you cramp up when you do sports, because this acid builds up.

    • Photo: Matthew Pankhurst

      Matthew Pankhurst answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      Yes and no! There are some life forms that don’t breathe oxygen, like at the bottom of the sea floor where hot gasses come out – they breathe those gasses instead. However, your body and those sea creatures bodies are made partly by oxygen (not as a gas, but as part of molecule), so you can’t actually live without it. For instance, water is partly oxygen – and water is in all of your cells, and make reactions happen. We’d all fall to bits without oxygen! And the earth would too – oxygen is the most common atom in the mantle and crust of the earth.

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