Pygmy right whale

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8 January 2009

Museum science dissections – a new trend?

Posted by pamelalovis under Colossal squid, Pygmy right whale | Tags: , , , , , , |
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It seems like New Zealand museums are setting a new trend for staging scientific dissections of big interesting animals and getting the public involved in them online.

It’s a great way to engage visitors with the scientific activities of natural history museums – it takes the behind-the-scenes stuff out into the public arena. And it can be a real boost to public knowledge and understanding about animal biology and conservation.

Today Auckland Museum is holding a dissection of a Great White Shark and you can view it on their website from 2pm. The necropsy, or animal autopsy, will raise public awareness of this magnificent, and vulnerable fish species.

Here at Te Papa we have also had great success with making some recent scientific examinations and dissections available online. In April 2008 a team of scientists thawed and examined a colossal squid, but didn’t dissect it. This is the colossal squid now on display , along with lots of info explaining it’s anatomy. While the team examined the big colossal squid specimen they dissected a smaller, incomplete colossal squid specimen and a giant squid specimen and blogged about it live. The information we got  from dissecting these other big squid specimens was vital to understanding the biology of the colossal squid, and then communicating this in the exhibition.

After the success of the squid investigations we then decided to blog about a dissection of a pygmy right whale in May 2008. Looking at our blog stats we still have heaps of people going to these posts about the pygmy right whale heart and lungs – somewhat strange, but true.  I’m not sure why these posts would be so popular - so if anyone out there knows please tell me!

Then in July 2008 the Melbourne Museum held a public dissection of a giant squid, which you can view here. 

From big molluscs we have now moved on to big fish! It’s great to see these new ways of communicating science in museums being explored and our museum-based scientists taking centre stage -  I’m interested to know what others think about this.

 

9 May 2008

Update on dissection and findings

Posted by janekeig under Pygmy right whale, Whales | Tohorā | Tags: , , |
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The whale has now been completed dissected and the organs such as intestine, kidneys and heart, are being preserved in a formalin solution. the bones are being flensed (stripped of muscle). The stomach content revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

Dr Joy Reidenberg is now in the process of investigating respiratory tract. Above you can see the lungs and Dr Reidenberg is holding up the laryngeal sac which is different to other animals in that it sits off to the side instead in the middle.

 

9 May 2008

Viscera revealed

Posted by janekeig under Pygmy right whale, Whales | Tohorā | Tags: , , |
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This morning the internal organs were individually explored. The blood vessels near the heart showed that this whale successfully changed from an intra uterine to extra uterine life (technically, the ductus arteriosus was closed).

The ductus arteriosus is a blood vessel that circulates oxygenated blood received from the mother whale while the baby whale is in the uterus. When the baby whale is born, the lungs take over this function and the ductus arteriosus gradually closes and becomes a part of the ligature.

 

9 May 2008

Last day of dissection

Posted by janekeig under Pygmy right whale, Whales | Tohorā | Tags: , |
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This morning the internal organs will be removed and preserved in jars for later study.

I am assured that this will reduce the smell – I have a pretty good stomach for this kind of thing but whale guts smell bad!

You can see part of the jaw being removed in the above picture and below is the view looking from the body up to the head.

The large white mass in the near the top of the skull is tympanic bulla (the ear bone).

You can see the heart in the lower right hand side corner with arteries coming out of it – they look like collapsed sausages.

 

8 May 2008

Lungs and heart

Posted by janekeig under Pygmy right whale, Whales | Tohorā | Tags: , , , |
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Above is a picture of the Pygmy right whale lung, it’s about 45cm long when stretched out like it is below. The lungs sit under the backbone of the whale and isn’t divided into lobes like human lungs are.

The scientists told me that they think it’s smaller than usual in a whale of this size.

The heart is in perfect shape – it actually looked like a Valentine’s heart especially when it was lifted out – see below.

 

8 May 2008

Guts ‘n’ stuff

Posted by janekeig under Pygmy right whale, Whales | Tohorā | Tags: , , |
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The scientists have removed the rib bones from one half of the whale. It’s getting a little bit smelly!

When the scientists lifted the intestine out, I could see it was attached by a thin but very tough membrane and in the membrane were…

Not chicken pox! Those darker lumps are lymph nodes!

Lymph channels are important as part of the immune system and filter the fluid to the heart that is not returned by veins. Lymph nodes in the gut, like above, carry the fat that has been absorbed by the gut and ensure that foriegn bodies like bacteria are eliminated before reaching the heart

 

8 May 2008

How baby whales feed

Posted by janekeig under Pygmy right whale, Whales, Whales | Tohorā | Tags: , , |
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Above you see the tongue of the baby pygmy right whale. Whales lips aren’t flexible enough to form a suction around the mother’s nipple like human babies do.

To latch on to the mother’s nipple, a baby whale curls its tongue. A good suction is assisted by the flaps on either side of the tongue – you can see one of them above. As the baby whale gets older and is no longer suckling, the flaps will mostly disappear. Cool, huh? :-)

 

8 May 2008

Structures of the throat are well preserved

Posted by janekeig under Pygmy right whale, Whales | Tohorā | Tags: , , |
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Drs Reidenberg and Fordyce are now actively uncovering the deeper tissues of the throat. This specimen is in an excellent state of preservation, so that delicate tissues like nerves are easy to identify.

 

8 May 2008

Update from scientists-rib structure

Posted by janekeig under Pygmy right whale, Whales | Tohorā | Tags: , , |
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The scientists are removing the muscle layer to reveal the pygmy right whale’s unusual bone structure.

This is Dr Sentiel Rommel’s thoughts on the rib structure:

You can see the ribs gradually changing to the unique flattened and overlapping ribs on the right. the space between the ribs allows them to move as the whale breathes and also accomodates changes in volume that occurs as the air is compressed by water pressure when the whale dives through deep water.

The flattened ribs don’t have as much space between them and overlap. The study of terrestial animals that have wide, flattened ribs (the pangolin and anteater) have shown that these ribs proably increase the stiffness of the body.

So possibly a stiffer body has advantages in the way they swim, but this is purely speculative at the moment!

Hi this is Anton on Jane’s blog. This morning we discovered that the second rib on the left side of the animal is broken. We can tell from the bloody area around the break that the animal suffered this injury prior to death. Dead animals don’t bleed. This injury probably occured at the time of the stranding but most likely did not contribute to cause of death.

 

7 May 2008

Hairs? on a whale?

Posted by janekeig under Pygmy right whale, Whales | Tohorā | Tags: , |
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I was a bit surprised to find out that whales have hair!

Cath Kemper said:

‘Most whales and dolphins are born with a few hairs on their face. Most will lose these hairs within weeks of birth but some species, such as humpbacks and maybe pygmy right whales, retain them as adults.’

 

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