First Dissection Class

Today was the very first dissection practical of the programme (first one of many more to come as I'm reassured by my seniors). It seemed simple enough, what we are expected to do is dissect a locust, a fish, a squid and a rat to compare their gas exchange systems, reproductive systems and digestive systems. We are each given one locust each to start off and are told to cut up the 'shell' (as I call it) and try to look at the insides of the insect.

 To be honest, despite the diagrams given and a picture in the practical manual, it was still a bit foreign to me. I looked down the microscope and had to orientate myself with the poor mangled insect (yep I didn't do a good job cutting that 'shell' off) and try to match the diagram to the actual insect. After 30 min of prodding, pulling, checking out my friends' insects and what they have discovered, I begin to understand the creature more. What I had was a female locus with a rather obvious set of ovaries or spermatheca (this organ was under debate by the demonstrators during the practical and needs a bit more research to confirm) with no obvious signs of fat but once I recognised the features, there was so much to look at and understand from this one tiny creature. Isn't it interesting to observe from behind the lens and see what they have inside?

 Next came the squid which we dissected as a group. In my opinion, it wasn't as fascinating as (1) I've done the tearing out of the guts from the squid many times before (calamari anyone?) and I also watched a video on youtube prior to class, so I knew what was going on. The best part of this prac was when the demonstrator injected coloured dye into the squid and you could see where the digestion tract lead up to.

 The fish dissection wasn't that interesting either, well (1) we were dissecting the rat on the other side while the others dissected up the fish (2) again, if you are used to cooking at home, the fish guts isn't something you haven't seen before.


 The best was the rat which was quite a large specimen. We had a female rat who wasn't pregnant (there was a group with a pregnant one and we saw the foetus under the microscope - way cool on that!) and her organs were quite easily identifiable. I also did some preparation by watching the same dissection on youtube prior to class. I felt it was more helpful as it definitely made me know what I was doing and I was not just poking around in the dark.

 This is possibly the only dissection practical on animals and insect for this semester but it definitely makes learning much more interesting. Of course it does help nowadays with so much information on the internet to go and watch a few videos on related topics.