Friday, March 30, 2007
among my other foolish responsiblities, I am TAing Chordate Zoology. This means I get to help 19 year olds cut up a variety of animals that I never cut up myself because locating the spleen in a fish, turtle and mink is a bit of an archaic skill and Eli EEB was all about the sexy computers and genetics. We dissect minks as our highest mammal. This is because there is a fairly large mink-farming business. but once the farmers kill the minks and skin them, the rest of the mink is fairly useless. so these skinless minks are sold to biological supply companies who inject the arteries and veins with latex, pickle them in weak formalin and sell them to eager undergrads. given that these minks were farmed to have shiny pelts and not move around too much, they are very very fatty.
# posted by 8yearoldsdude @ 2:10 PM 
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In eighth grade I located the spleen of a little shark, but I remember that dissection is sort of a performance of one's own lack of squeamishness. Everyone eggs each other on until pretty soon a couple of 13-year-old boys are tossing the slimy spleen around. Poor fatty minks.
# posted by 
: 11:37 PM
: 11:37 PM
i think you make an interesting point about socialogical phenomenon of dissection as a demonstration of a lack of squemishness. but spleen tossing should not have been allowed. these animals died so that you can learn and should be treated with respect. college students are much better in that regard.
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