Kweichowensis dissection pics #2 male

[paris]

here are pics from the male that died in shipping, again i dont know how long he was dead before i dissected him.

here's a pic of his jaw and front foot, number (1) points to the orange patch that helps identify it as a male, (2) points to the injury to the front foot, part of it is missing

here is a shot of its tail-the tip is missing and this appears to be a mechanical wound. the number points to one of the ulcers on the animal-these were not too far advanced to explain his death.

here is a shot of the oral cavity, its very pale, there is a little internal damage visible corresponding to the external wound on the lower jaw

here is what i saw with the first cut-worms all over the inside of the body cavity, i collected these up for inspection under a traditional high power monocular scope

here is a shot of the lungs with worms clearly visible in them

here is the gi tract, i have opened the stomach to show its lining-it looks pretty good. there is a full cloaca at the other end showing fecal matter, proof that this animal was eating fine, there were no visible adult worms in the fecal matter and it was well digested, no insect parts seen, possibly worm based

here are what i believe to be the testes, no fat bodies seen here at all but the animal looked pretty good on weight

 

[TJ]

Really amazing, Paris -- and something I wouldn't have the courage to do...

Those look like the type of worms I've seen swimming in a couple of my tanks in the past, and which reappeared even after 100% water changes. Maybe they were expelled with feces. Have you noticed that they swim extremely rapidly? If not, could you put one in water and see?

 

[erik]

Well done Paris. Thanks for sharing this with us.

 

[paris]

tim,
its easy to do, it just takes some getting used to, i did 2 at the store front with a razor blade, common scissors, dressmakers pins and a flat piece of styro foam, having one of those magnifying glasses on a base-like the ones they use for fly tieing-helps too

 

[nate]

Yeah, amazing shots paris. Thanks for sharing your misfortune, hopefully some others here can learn from it and get some glimpses of Tylototriton anatomy.

 

[foster]

Again thanks for sharing these pics. Good job!
Chip

 

[paris]

please read post i am currently working on in the help section-i explain the stuff i found out about the worms..

 

[ira]

wow, very nice.

 

[paris]

tim,

when i had separated the worms from the lungs and had them in a petri dish of water they just sat there and thrashed back and forth, so they dont seem to be vigorous swimmers but in water they can just sit and wait cant they? the larger ones of these worms, im guessing sub adults (the ones seen in the body cavity) are like little dark threads but the adults look almost harlequin, 1/2 dark & 1/2 light because of the eggs (see my drawing in the help section), what do the worms you see look like?

 

[TJ]

Paris, it's in this thread:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/7/25357.html?1101699477