Does green blood exist?

It's not a dietary supplement for vegan vampires.

Published: March 10, 2011 at 2:00 pm

Asked by: BBC Focus Magazine

Yes. Instead of the haemoglobin used by vertebrates, molluscs and some crustaceans use a greenish-blue, copper-based pigment called haemocyanin to carry the oxygen in their blood. There’s also a genus of skink, Prasinohaema (which means ‘green blood’ in Greek) that accumulates the bile pigment biliverdin in the lizard’s blood, which is bright green as a result.

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