Monday, May 21, 2012

Cat Lab







The cat dissection was a get challenge to me. For me wanting to be a vet,  this made me unsettling queasy. My group consisted of Reveae, and Aneesha and we began with a already skinned cat. Our first step was to remove any extra fat or skin that was not needed to see the superficial muscles. I was proud of my skills there, as i was able to remove most of it without the damaging of the muscles. At this point we skipped the part of learning the superficial muscles on the outside. Yet I learned that on my own with my own cheat code i guess you would call it.

The major muscles in the abdomen and chest area are the pectorallis major and minor, esentially the cat equivialant of your pecs on the human anatomy. major extends out into your shoulders, connecting to the minor and thus creating the pecs on the cat. The latissimus dorsi are the obliques on the cat, the side muscles that partially cover the ribs and also connect to the pecs. the Rectus abdominis are basically what you would call the abs on the cat.

This is were we ran into problems. Either two of us were gone on a given day so we sorta drifted and went to other groups. I joined Jodi, Dillion, Nic, and Zerek in massacuring Maximus, their poor defenseless cat. This is where I learned about the internal structure of the cat. I was still shaky on the artieries  that we found but I was able to identify the inside of the cat relatively easy.

The heart was underneath the lungs as in a normal human to the right, thus creating a lopsided lung shape. both lungs were present and as we traveled down to find a normal small and large intestine which led to the urinary system which includes the anus and rectum for fecal matter, the bladder and urinary tract for liquid waste. I take us back up to the lungs and we continue there. Along with the lungs, right underneath  them was the diaphram which helped keep the cats lung in check. We go down lower still and under the liver was a tiny tube that led to the bile duct which led to the gull bladder which holds bile to break down compact matters. Farther down underneath the large round intestine we found the kidneys. Now max (short for maximus) has a large amount of fat stores that were there to actually "feed" nueriants to the kidneys.

That was the extent I learned on that part.
Then I went onto the male reporductive system for a cat, as the joke in the group went, poor max.
 You could find the prostate, the vas deferens,bladder, ureter, urethra, and uhmm...his penis. Lower down you could find his scrotum and as you cut inside you can find his testes. you also cut inside them to find the spermadic cords which also lead back up to the vas deferens which is like a sperm storage unit.