Our lungs are made up of millions of tiny bags. Breath in, fill the bags with fresh air, breathe out, empty the bags of spent air. But bird lungs are very different.

Gotta say, I did not see that coming. Today sees the publication of a new paper by Emma Schachner and colleagues in Nature, documenting for the first time that unidirectional, flow-through breathing–previously only known in birds and crocodilians–happens in freakin’ monitor lizards.

Gah! No time, no time. I am overdue on some things, so this is a short pointer post, not the thorough breakdown this paper deserves. The short, short version: Schachner et al. (2013) is out in PeerJ, describing airflow in the lungs of Nile crocs, and showing how surprisingly birdlike croc lungs actually are.