The Reptilian Nature of the Human Heart

The rhythmic beating of the human heart is driven by electrical impulses that originate in specialized “pacemaker” cells and spread like a wave through the heart muscle, causing first the atria and then the ventricles to contract. The evolutionary origins of this conduction system have long puzzled scientists, in large part because it was thought to be a feature that we shared in common with birds but not reptiles, which appeared to lack conducting tissue in their hearts. But scientists recently discovered that hidden beneath the obvious anatomical differences in the hearts of mammals, birds, and reptiles is a common molecular structure, one that points toward a shared evolutionary origin.

Types of reptilian hearts: lizard, snake, crocodile, and turtle. Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.


The scientists looked specifically at the hearts of adult frogs, lizards, and zebrafish, comparing them with embryonic heart tissue from mice, humans, and chickens. They found that mammals, birds, and reptiles display similar expression patterns for genes involved in heart development. As the mammalian heart developed further, however, taking on a more complex morphology, the gene expression patterns also grew increasingly complex. This progression was not observed in reptilian hearts.

Cross section of the human heart. Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Reptiles and mammal and bird embryos have hearts characterized by thin walls of spongy muscle tissue (the myocardium). While reptiles maintain this structure into adulthood, adult mammals and birds develop much thicker, stronger walls. This more compact structure is needed to sustain the high heart rate and high level of oxygen consumption that mammals and birds require for their endothermic (warm-blooded) lifestyles. Endotherms spend large amounts of energy to maintain constant body temperatures, and therefore they have high metabolic demands. Reptiles, on the other hand, are ectothermic and therefore spend far less energy on the regulation of body temperature. Thus, they can get by with spongy hearts that pump relatively weakly.

So, in essence, the conducting tissue of the human heart is a sophisticated network of a tissue similar to that found in the spongy hearts of reptiles. The findings of a primordial ancestry are remarkable, particularly given that the human heart has been the subject of many profound advances in medical science.


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