Biology · Body Fluids and Circulation · NEET
Both. Blood is a fluid, but it is also a tissue. A tissue is a group of similar cells doing one job together. Blood has cells (RBCs, WBCs, platelets) that all work on transport, so it counts as a tissue. Because its matrix is liquid, we call it a fluid connective tissue.
The matrix of blood is plasma. Plasma is a straw-coloured liquid that makes up about 55% of blood. It is 90-92% water plus proteins, salts, glucose and other substances. The formed elements (cells) float in this plasma matrix, just as cells sit in the matrix of bone or cartilage.
Epithelial tissue has tightly packed cells with almost no matrix, forming a covering or lining. Blood is the opposite: its cells are loose and separated by a large amount of liquid matrix (plasma). Having lots of matrix between cells is the mark of connective tissue, so blood is connective, not epithelial.
A tissue only needs cells doing a common function inside a matrix; the matrix does not have to be solid. In bone the matrix is hard, in cartilage it is slightly soft, and in blood it is liquid (plasma). So the liquid plasma is simply blood's version of a matrix — the tissue definition still holds.
Yes. The word connective means it links parts of the body. Blood flows everywhere and carries oxygen, nutrients, hormones, heat and wastes from one organ to another, joining them functionally. This transport role is exactly why NCERT places blood under connective tissues.
Try the real previous-year questions from this chapter — each with the answer and a full solution.
NCERT states that vertebrates circulate blood, a fluid connective tissue, made of a fluid matrix (plasma) and formed elements (cells). Cells in a matrix plus a connecting/transport role make it a connective tissue.
Plasma (the fluid matrix, about 55%) and formed elements (the cells, about 45%): red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets.
Yes. Lymph (tissue fluid) is also a fluid connective tissue, but it lacks RBCs and some plasma proteins, and it flows in lymph vessels instead of blood vessels.
Blood is a specialised or fluid connective tissue, grouped with lymph. Its matrix is liquid, unlike the solid matrix of bone or the semi-solid matrix of cartilage.
