Hemocyanin

Okay kiddo, today we are going to talk about hemocyanin! Hemocyanin is a special kind of protein found in the blood of some animals like crabs, snails, and spiders.

Now, you know how we breathe in oxygen from the air to help our body work properly. These animals don't actually breathe in oxygen like we do, instead they use hemocyanin to carry oxygen around their body.

Hemocyanin looks kind of like a blue donut with little copper atoms stuck to it. When these animals need oxygen, their blood flows through their body and picks up the oxygen from their lungs (or gills in the case of crabs and snails) and then the hemocyanin takes the oxygen to all of the other important parts of the animal's body.

It's kind of like a mailman delivering letters to different houses. The hemocyanin is the mailman and the oxygen is the letter, going to different parts of the animal's body that need it.

Isn't that cool?!