Red blood cells (RBCs), also called erythrocytes, are the most common type of blood cell and the vertebrate's principal means of delivering oxygen (O2) to the body tissues—via blood flow through the circulatory system.  RBCs take up oxygen in the lungs, or gills of fish, and release it into tissues while squeezing through the body's capillaries.

In humans, mature red blood cells are flexible and oval biconcave disks. They lack a cell nucleus and most organelles, in order to accommodate maximum space for hemoglobin; they can be viewed as sacks of hemoglobin, with a plasma membrane as the sack. Approximately 2.4 million new erythrocytes are produced per second in human adults. The cells develop in the bone marrow and circulate for about 100–120 days in the body before their components are recycled by macrophages. Each circulation takes about 60 seconds (one minute). Approximately a quarter of the cells in the human body are red blood cells. Nearly half of the blood's volume (40% to 45%) is red blood cells.

Red blood cells are also known as red cells, red blood corpuscles, haematids, erythroid cells or erythrocytes (from Greek erythros for "red" and kytos for "hollow vessel", with -cyte translated as "cell" in modern usage). Packed red blood cells (pRBC) are red blood cells that have been donated, processed, and stored in a blood bank for blood transfusion.

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