Red blood cells, also known as erythrocytes, are cells that carry fresh oxygen throughout your body. They are large microscopic cells but they don't contain a nuclei, which makes it different than a eukaryotic cell. There are numerous of red blood cells in our body that look like tiny disk shaped figures. Red blood cells are really flexible so they can carry things in there like hemoglobin, which I will go in further detail on later. People think that because red blood cells don't have a nucleus, they are prokaryotic but actually, red blood cells are generally eukaryotic that have lost their nucleus. So, red blood cells contain many things that a eukaryotic cell would.
Red blood cells transport oxygen from the lung to living tissues all over the body. Hemoglobin, though, is the protein inside the cells that carry the oxygen. They also take carbon dioxide to your lungs so that you can exhale it. Not only is hemoglobin the protein that transports oxygen and carbon dioxide, its also a pigment. It gives the red blood cell it's red color. The life span of a red blood cell is about 120 days but millions of them are also created every second.
An interesting fact about red blood cells is that they make up about 44 percent of your body and make up about 7 percent of your body weight!
"Hemoglobin Toxicity: New $10.8 Million Study Begins." Hemoglobin Toxicity: New $10.8 Million Study Begins. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.
