Dissection Day 2: Wilbur the Fetal Pig

Next time you bite into your pork chop, bacon, and/or ham sandwich....I hope this image stays in your head and ruins your meal....

Meet Wilbur

That's right folks....today was dissection day 2....sorry for two super sad blogs in a row...but sometimes that's how the cookie crumbles. Today was purely a cut and poke around kinda day...no playing with fetal pigs in jars or anything...so it was a little easier. And when I say easier I mean I never got to see them alive .... they were in these air tight bags in some sort of gross preservative/formaldehyde liquid so they wouldn't smell....which I was UBER excited about (b/c I was slightly terrified I wouldn't be able to get past the smell). So after giving little Wilbur his last bath to get those juices off we layed him out belly up on our little dissection tray, identified all his external organs, and started cutting....one long lateral cut down the middle, 2 parallel cuts around the umbilical cord (b/c he is a fetus people), and 2 horizontal cuts across....one on each end of the sternum (which is a sort of hard surface that I was completely not expecting as I was cutting for some dumb reason...the sternum connects the rib cage that protects the heart, lungs and major blood vessles from being damaged)....the cuts opened up the body cavity (that was covered with a shiny membrane that holds all the organs together that we obviously cut through) so we could see all his little piggy organs and after pinning back the flaps from the cuts we flushed out his insides (that were also filled with the perservative/formaldehyde liquid) and we were ready to dig in!

First, let me just say from a stand point of being completely stupid/blind/ignorant when it comes to anatomy and the insides of ANYTHING.....its a little weird to see mini versions of the same things that are inside us... in real life... laying right there in front of me....so once I got over the fact that this poor little aborted fetus was pinned down to this tray that looks like its filled with burnt brownies....I got a little excited to see some real life organs right there in front of me.. ready to be poked and prodded and dug through! So let's dive in...and I'll give you a tour of little Wilbur the Fetal Pig's organs....bless his soul for having to die for me to be able to do this...and may he rest in peace with his bff Peter in lab animal heaven....amen.

Starting at the anterior end (at his head)...and although you can't see them clearly in this photo.. I'm talking about the area that is just under where the cut starts (just above that round circlular thing that is his heart!!!) all that in that glob of open mess is his salivary gland, larynx, thyroid, thymus gland, esophagus (that connects to the stomach where chewed up food travels through), and his trachea (that goes from the mouth and attaches to the lungs)

So then you get to that circle thing.. the HEART...which I always thought was shaped like <3 that...but apparently society has mislead me for the past 25 years! The <3 is the heart of the circulatory system...it is the pumper of blood...blood flows all around this little thing in all these little pathways and tubes before going out into the rest of your body...on top of the heart is this tube like structure called the aortic arch,  next to that is the pulmonary artery, just below those are two sections on each side called the right auricle and left auricle...below those is yet another section called the right ventricle ... seperated from the left ventricle on the other side via the coronary artery. Once you cut open the heart theres all these little tubes and pathways and crazy things that look super cool and connect all these sections so blood can flow through. (I haven't learned yet which way the blood flows and where it goes, etc ...but I'm sure if you stay tuned there will be a blog on that as well) There are also tubes off of the left and right (these are called pulmonary arteries) that connect to the lungs...a tube off the top (called the aorta) that travels to the body, and the one on the bottom (called the descending aorta) that travels to the trunk and legs.

To the left and right of the heart are these flat-ish things that are abstract in shape (but I guess could be close to triangle-ish..which again I could have never guess without my handy dandy diagram telling me what they were) are the LUNGS....they get oxygen that you breathe in from your mouth/nose and take it via your trachea to your lungs...where your body then uses it to oxygenate your blood that flows through your heart and takes it everywhere you need it via your blood vessles, veins, etc. Your lungs are apart of your Respiratory System and I guess are kind of a big deal.

Just below the lungs are the diaphragm (which you can't see from the photo above)...but just below that you CAN see the big dark brownish shape....is the LIVER. The liver is composed of 5 lobes and is a part of the digestive system. It produces enzymes that metabolize nutrients, and filters components of the blood...just under the liver is the GALLBLADDER..it was sort of green-ish because it is the major producer/storer of bile salts that are acids that help us digest our foods. There is this small tube that joins the hepatic ducts that come from the liver to form a common bile duct that empties into the duodenum (a small place where your stomach empties food little bits at a time so your body can digest it and feed it into the small intestine where it can be absorbed for nutrients, sent to the large intestine--or your colon-- where it is compacted and expelled as poop).

Just under/to the right of the liver is the STOMACH. It looked like this empty little sack w/ all these vessles/veins running through it with a tube connecting it to the esophagus at the top, and at the bottom to the SMALL INTESTINE---which you can see are those short stringy looking glob. This is where your food, after it is digested, passes through and the nutrients get absorbed for your body to use.

Just under the small intestine is the PANCREAS. The pancrease produces digestive enzymes and secrets insulun to regulate your blood sugar.

The larger tubes connected to the small intestine (via the caecum--i.e. your appendix) are the LARGE INTESTINE--this is where your waste is "perculating" before you poop it out....it is also called your colon.

*these masses are seen in those coils just below the darker browish thing thats the liver*



Then theres a big wad of mess down near the posterior end (near the tail) that consists of the Urinary System and the Genital System. If you lift the visceral organs (all the small intestine, pancreas, stomach, and large intestine...etc) you'll find the paired KIDNEYS located on the dorsal (back) body wall. And yes they are bean shaped...just like the dried ones we played bingo with as children. The kidney is connected to the bladder (that you can see in that long shape thing that is coming out from between the legs--thats right...its not a penis...its a bladder-- in this fetus is connected to the umbilical cord b/c thats how fetus' use the bathroom) and in our girl pig (yes wilbur is a girl) joins the vagina. There is also this structure beside the kidney.. that is the adrenal gland (which is a part of the endocrine system).

If we had cut another incision between the hind legs (which we obviously didn't do) ... we would have opened up the pelvus area exposing the ovaries, uterus, vagina, and finally ending with the rectum and anus. Apparently the lab partner and I got slack and quit before it was over.....shhh don't tell my TA.

So here is another diagram of everything I just described up close and personal...just in case you want to study for the quiz next week ;)

Hope you guys will remember this anatomy lesson when you eat your next slice of Wilbur --- Good news is: this was our last dissection for a few weeks...*high fives*