From the dorsobronchi the fresh air from the posterior air sacs flows through the parabronchi (in the same direction as occurred during inhalation) into ventrobronchi. The air passages connecting the ventrobronchi and anterior air sacs to the intrapulmonary bronchi direct the "spent", oxygen poor air from these two organs to the trachea from where it escapes to the exterior. Oxygenated air therefore flows constantly (during the entire breathing cycle) in a single direction through the parabronchi. The blood flow through the bird lung is at right angles to the flow of air through the parabronchi, forming a cross-current flow exchange system (Fig. 19). The partial pressure of oxygen in the parabronchi declines along their lengths as O2 diffuses into the blood. The blood capillaries leaving the exchanger near the entrance of airflow take up more O2 than do the capillaries leaving near the exit end of the parabronchi. When the contents of all capillaries mix, the final partial pressure of oxygen of the mixed pulmonary venous blood is higher than that of the exhaled air, but is nevertheless less than half that of the inhaled air, thus achieving roughly the same systemic arterial blood partial pressure of oxygen as mammals do with their bellows-type lungs. The trachea is an area of dead space: the oxygen-poor air it contains at the end of exhalation is the first air to re-enter the posterior air sacs and lungs. In comparison to the mammalian respiratory tract, the dead space volume in a bird is, on average, 4.5 times greater than it is in mammals of the same size. Birds with long necks will inevitably have long tracheae, and must therefore take deeper breaths than mammals do to make allowances for their greater dead space volumes. In some birds (e.g. the whooper swan, "Cygnus cygnus", the white spoonbill, "Platalea leucorodia", the whooping crane, "Grus americana", and the helmeted curassow, "Pauxi pauxi") the trachea, which some cranes can be 1.5 m long, is coiled back and forth within the body, drastically increasing the dead space ventilation. The purpose of this extraordinary feature is unknown. The anatomical structure of the lungs is less complex in reptiles than in mammals, with reptiles lacking the very extensive airway tree structure found in mammalian lungs.