Swim bladder

(vertebrate zoology) A gas-filled cavity found in the body cavities of most bony fishes; has various functions in different fishes, acting as a float, a lung, a hearing aid, and a sound-producing organ.

A gas-filled sac found in the body cavities of most bony fishes (Osteichthyes). The swim bladder has various functions in different fishes, acting as a float which gives the fish buoyancy, as a lung, as a hearing aid, and as a soundproducing organ. In many fishes it serves two or three of these functions, and in the African and Asiatic knife fishes (Notopteridae) it may serve all four. The swim bladder contains the same gases that make up air, but often in different proportions.