Article and photos provided by Advanced Biology students: Tatyana Leija and Telli Morford

Advanced Biology - Rat Dissection

The rat dissection is a good way to show what the inside of mammals look like. The materials we needed were a disection tray and the right dissection materials.

During the dissection we had to first skin the rat to look at the muscular structure of it. The muscles we had to find were the biceps brachii, the triceps branchii, the spinotrapezius, the larissimus dorsi, biceps femoris, tibilalis anterior, gastrocnemius, external oblique gluteus maximus, and pectoralis major/minor. 

After examining the muscle structres we had to cut into the thoracic cavity and then into the abdominal cavity to see all the internal organs. In the  thoracic cavity we located the diaphragm, which is what separates the thoracic cavity from the abdominal cavity. Also in the thoracic cavity is the heart, the thymus gland, and the lungs. In the abdominal cavity we needed to locate the liver, median cystic lobe, left lateral lobe, right lateral lobe, the cuadate lobe, the esophagus, stomach, spleen, pancreas, small intestine, and the colon (large intestine.)                                               

        

The last things we had to find were the exretory organs and the reproductive organs. For the excretory organs we had to find the renal arteries and veins, the ureters, the cortex and the medulla, the urethra and urethral office, and the adrenal glands. In the reproductive system of the male we had to find the vas deferens, testes, scrotal sacm, epididymus, and the urethra. In the reproductive organs of the female we had to find the vagina, the two uterine vesicles, ovaries, and the oviducts.

 Our rat was a female in which we found the ovaries and inside were eight developing fetus’s.

"I like doing dissections because I am a very hands-on type of learner. I feel that the material comes to me a lot more than if a teacher were to just give notes. Mr. Bradley does a good job of making us figure things out on our own with some help along the way."  ~Telli Morford, student

(Ok, I admit I removed the pictures due to graphic content. Pretty amazing though! ~mack)