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--0016e6d7e68192748604826b33af Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 About a month and a half ago, Tom Kavanaugh and Stephen Bushell brought me a Harp Seal that had died on a beach in Canso after having being basically moribund for at least two days (thanks again, guys!). This was a new addition to our collection so I decided to keep the entire skeleton. I pulled the animal out of the freezer last Friday so my anatomy students and I could have a good review of most of the systems this afternoon. We were very fortunate to have cameo appearances by parasitologist Dr. Gwyneth Jones of SMU and Curator of Zoology, Andrew Hebda of the NS Museum of Natural History, who both contributed to the afternoon's lesson. Gwyneth kept taking organs from the seal as I was finished with them, and with some of the students, extracted nematodes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematoda) and acanthocephalans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthocephala). One student in particular had a great time slicing through the very long, small intestine and found most of the parasites. Unlike most of the animals I work with in the lab, I am reasonably sure of the cause of death of this seal. Prior to searching for stomach parasites, I noticed a bulge in the junction between the stomach and intestine; there is a sphincter there, the pyloric sphincter, which controls the release of food from the stomach to the small intestine. The bulge seemed bigger than if it was just the sphincter, so I was hoping for lots of worms. There were. And two plastic bottle caps firmly lodged in the sphincter. A 100 kg animal, killed by 20 g of plastic clogging its digestive system. Randy _________________________________ RF Lauff Way in the boonies of Antigonish County, NS. --0016e6d7e68192748604826b33af Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable About a month and a half ago, Tom Kavanaugh and Stephen Bushell brought me = a Harp Seal that had died on a beach in Canso after having being basically = moribund for at least two days (thanks again, guys!). This was a new additi= on to our collection so I decided to keep the entire skeleton. I pulled the= animal out of the freezer last Friday so my anatomy students and I could h= ave a good review of most of the systems this afternoon.<div> <br></div><div>We were very fortunate to have cameo appearances by parasito= logist Dr. Gwyneth Jones of SMU and Curator of Zoology, Andrew Hebda of the= NS Museum of Natural History, who both contributed to the afternoon's = lesson. Gwyneth kept taking organs from the seal as I was finished with the= m, and with some of the students, extracted nematodes (<a href=3D"http://en= .wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematoda">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematoda</a>) an= d acanthocephalans (<a href=3D"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthocephala"= >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthocephala</a>). One student in particula= r had a great time slicing through the very long, small intestine and found= most of the parasites.</div> <div><br>Unlike most of the animals I work with in the lab, I am reasonably= sure of the cause of death of this seal. Prior to searching for stomach pa= rasites, I noticed a bulge in the junction between the stomach and intestin= e; there is a sphincter there, the pyloric sphincter, which controls the re= lease of food from the stomach to the small intestine. The bulge seemed big= ger than if it was just the sphincter, so I was hoping for lots of worms. T= here were.</div> <div><br></div><div>And two plastic bottle caps firmly lodged in the sphinc= ter. A 100 kg animal, killed by 20 g of plastic clogging its digestive syst= em.</div><div><br></div><div>Randy<br>_________________________________<br> RF Lauff<br>Way in the boonies of<br>Antigonish County, NS.<br> </div> --0016e6d7e68192748604826b33af--
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