Well About a week ago I finished Dissecting my frog-- the last Dissection project that I have for Biology. I'll talk about in more detail when I get the Pictures uploaded but for now I'll just give an overview of my dissection experiences.

In all I had four dissections--An Earthworm, A Crayfish, A Perch, and A Frog. They are listed not only in the order I did them but also in the order of difficulty. (Makes sense--you do the easy stuff first then work up to the hard stuff.) I'm sure If you've been to this blog you've read about my fish dissection and later I'll post about the frog so I won't go into much detail about those but I will talk about the general practice of Dissection.

First you get your animal out of its container. (It could be a zip-lock bag like what I had or it could be a freezer or maybe even you catch your own animal) Then you'll have to obsevre unique structures on the outside of the animal--its head, mouth, limbs, gills, eyes, etc. After that if the animal has an easily removable skin you'll remove that by starting on the under side and cutting an "I" shape (strait up the underside, across both pectoral Limbs [Arms] and both Pelvic limbs [Legs])

If your Animal happens to have an exoskeleton you'll have to remove that. If any of you have eaten Lobster, crab or any other crunchy crustation you'll know that you need to remove the animals suit of armor before eating you hidden treasures. The same goes for dissection--only I hope you won't be eating raw, chemical saturated crayfish. It is pretty simple. You just cut along the top side of the animal the cut right above the legs. Remove the armor and you're done or just beginning...

After you remove the Skin/exoskeleton you'll have to open up the "Body wall" the layer of muscle that contains the internal organs. (Heart, stomach, intestine, etc.) Inside the animal you'll find all the previously mentioned structures But the question is can you Identify them? The stomach/intestine structure is pretty easy to find. Usually it is the first thing that you will see (In the earth worm it is about the only thing you will see! LOL) After that you can usually Identify other structures (Heart, reproductive organs, blood filtering organs [kidneys, green glands] etc.) Honestly it isn't all that bad. The gilled animals are a little messy when you remove their gills but other than that there isn't that much of a mess--if you are careful.

Now after everything is taken out (Or at least Identified) you have to expose the brain of the animal (if they have one) It wasn't that hard to crack the skull but you just have to be careful so you don't damage the little thinker. After the skull is cracked you'll have to peal away the bone and muscle that protects the vital part of the animal.

All in all Dissection isn't that hard but would I do it for fun? No. But because science, my parents, and good grades demanded that I do it I did it and learned from it too--the most important thing I learned is you don't want to be a lab-raised frog.