I have a lot to be thankful for as a scientist, including a great, steady set of blog readers interested in my freezer and its sundry tenants. And now and then I get a fun surprise, like Redditors stumbling across my posts and ramping up my blog views by a factor of 10-20 fold. So this weekend I did (and am still doing at this moment) an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) on Reddit, by suggestion, and I just crossed 1000 Twitter followers. So I figure I should give some thanks.
And I will give those thanks in a way that I can only do on this blog. With kickass pictures of incredible animal anatomy! Much as I started this blog with giraffes, I will return to them now. And I will let the pictures, with brief captions, tell the tale. These photos are from a dissection our team did quite a few years ago, on an adult giraffe that died suddenly in a local zoo. I forget who snapped these photos– my thanks to them anyway, as I didn’t take them but it was someone from our team.
Stomach-Churning Rating: a 7/10 or even 8/10, depending on your fortitude. Blood, a freshly dead animal, guts, brains, and more. So before we go further, while you brace yourself if need be, a pic to liven things up. Here I am with my cat (taken a few years ago, too), wishing you Happy Holidays — and much fortitude.
Away we go!
Left side of the neck. Purplish-blue vessel toward the bottom/eft is the jugular vein, shown next. Nuchal ligament, shown further below, is toward the top.
The jugular vein, opened to show the valves (little pockets), which prevent blood from flowing back down the neck.
Cross-section of trachea (windpipe). A narrow tube should give less dead space to move in/out with each breath, so it makes sense for such a huge, long-necked animal to have such a thin trachea.
The nuchal ligament, which runs along the spine and helps hold up that long neck.
The big heart, needed to pump blood up that long neck to the head. Compare with the elephant and rhino hearts posted here before.
Left shoulder and ribcage, muscles of the triceps peeled back. Shoulder blade (scapula) visible. The neck extends up to the left corner.
Left side of chest, rumen (fermenting tank) showing through behind ribcage. Forelimb has been entirely removed here.
The left cheek’s teeth (molars)– and check out the spines on the inside of the cheek! They are keratinous growths to aid in chewing, food movement, digestion, protection against thorns, etc. These extend into the stomach, too! These amazed me the first time I saw them, in an okapi (giraffe cousin).
The brain, in bottom view. Olfactory nerves leading to the nostrils near the top (whitish), and optic chiasm for the eyes (“X” shape behind the olfactory nerves) are visible, then the medulla oblongata, smallish cerebellum and the spinal cord. For a human brain diagrammed and labelled in similar view, see here.
Like rhinos, elephants and many other large mammals, giraffes (especially in captivity) are vulnerable to foot/hoof pathologies, such as this very skewed/divergent pair of nails on the right front foot. This can lead to them walking very abnormally, getting infections or arthritis and other problems, so it is very serious.
- The tapetum lucidum; reflective coating of the eye that can aid in night vision and protect the eye a bit. Gorgeous!
Hope to see you again here soon!
What's In John's Freezer? 
John,
Thank you for the opportunity to sit here in Vermont and participate in the dissection of a giraffe. I’ve always been fascinated by what makes animals work, and whether I’m just butchering a steer for meat, or field dressing a deer in the woods, I always go slower and do more investigative cutting than necessary.
Keep up the good work.
DAC
You are very welcome, and thanks for the comment!
John – awesome post. Giraffe’s are seriously complex critters – gets me thinking about sauropods again……
Thanks dude!
Wow – that scapula is amazing. Superb stuff.
Those olfactory cranial nerves are amazing…
BTW, I’d love to talk to you about collecting eyes some time. We could do some very cool science, not to mention make excellent comparative anatomy of retinas.
thank you for writing the blog, I have enjoyed geeking out in your virtual freezer this year.
Wow! I can’t get over those spines!
Clearly we need to make you grateful more often! The giraffe was amazing and the cat awfuly cute.
Gory is fine, I’m in trouble if I can smell it! Love the internet.
Those nerve (bundles?) are huge. It makes sense that there needs to be that much volume, but as a layman I’ve only seen the spider-webby representations of the other end of the nerve chain. Cool stuff.
Thank you!
Hi,just noticed on twitter you asked about some translation from german->english, do you still need someone? I don’t have a twitter account but I think you can see my email at the top of this comment, drop me a line if you are still in need.
Thanks RH, we found some people but I’ll keep you in mind if they don’t work out!
Thanks for all the kind comments! I am replying late as I’ve been very distracted and neglecting all the juicy anatomy on the blog- but rest assured, more is to come!
The tapetum lucidum looks huge, which sent me searching online… Can’t find an answer… So “How big is a giraffe eye?” From the photograph, I’m estimating the globe is 2.5 to 3 inches in diameter. Is that right?
Yeah that seems about right- I didn’t measure it but sounds close enough.
The pictures don’t bother me but the phrase “juicy anatomy” got to me! Ha. My word, what an impressive jugular. And that rumen! And that heart! And that (relatively) little brain but those great big olfactory bulbs!
I now think about this blog whenever I am coping with re-cutting meat from my local butcher (who is very nice but with whom I have communication issues.)
Glad you appreciated it– show the blog to your butcher! 🙂
thank you for these valuable photos,they’re really helpful for my painting 😀
animals’ Body structure are really amazing!
I’m very glad that it’s helpful!
I was wondering, did you ever figure out why it died so suddenly? I’m guessing the dissection was at least partially exploratory/investigative as well as for education/study purposes.
I wish I could remember, Lee! I was not there at the time, and am not sure if they ever even told me what the conclusion was. But yes, any time an animal (especially an important one like a giraffe) dies in a zoo, a postmortem is done to learn why it died (or any other problems with it) as well as for teaching, management/husbandry, research and other purposes– they tend to try to get the most out of specimens, so sometimes it is a flurry of activity with many vets, pathologists, scientists, museum workers, etc. all scrambling around the body trying to get information they need in very limited time.
ewww that is sad and gross at the same time
[…] If you have a strong stomach, you can see an entire dissection of a giraffe’s neck here. […]