External Anatomy

On the first day of dissection, our focus was on the pig's exterior parts. Each student retrieved a fetal pig from a bucket of harmless fluid that helps keep them preserved after their death. We then determined the sex of our pig by observing the external reproductive organs. Our pig on the first day was a boy (noticeable by his scrotum), but was smaller and less developed than many of the other groups' pigs, and hadn't developed his testicles fully yet. When we observed the skin, we were surprised to find how stiff and cold it was. This made working with the tools a little bit more difficult than I anticipated, but I quickly got the hang of things. Particularly remarkable was the pigs expressionless face, as he bit down on his rough, hard tongue. Seeing the pig lying before us on the desk, some students began to feel uncomfortable with the assignment, but everyone quickly reorganized themselves and continued on in the name of science!

Our pig was primarily colorless. This photo shows the eerie facial expression of the pig when we first retrieved him, as well as the slit on his neck that many students were curious about. This slit was made prior to the dissection and was used to inject red dye into arteries and blue dye into veins to help us better distinguish between the two. 

Remember that the pigs were fetal at their time of death. Here, we get a good view of the pig's umbilical chord. 

The manual pictured here was used as a guide on the first day to give us a basic understanding of the fetal pig's external anatomy.

From this angle, many of the male pigs in the class had testicles that were easily visible. Ours however, had underdeveloped sex organs and was harder to determine. After some prodding and poking, we were lucky enough to find the scrotum, however, and safely concluded that we were dealing with a male. 

A tiny incision on the surface of the skin allowed us to see connective tissue, such as fascia, and capillaries (shown in red).Pictured here, however, is mostly fat (the clear-whitish substance), which can be used for insulation by the pig.