Frog Legs, Anyone?

WARNING: The following post contains pictures of frog organs. If you are uncomfortable with body parts or frogs in general, I suggest not reading this post.

*Picture/Comic belongs to rightful owner

I've never been a big fan of frogs.

I read about frogs when I was a kid and I even touched frogs as a little kid... but the frog I touched on Tuesday, was not small. No, dear reader. It was a HUGE defenseless frog.



If you haven't guessed by now, I dissected a frog on Tuesday. This wasn't the first thing I ever dissected (I've dissected a chicken wing before. You can read about it here.) When I first saw the dead frog in the plastic bag, I wasn't sure why I was disgusted. Maybe it was the size of the frog? Or could it be that I wasn't ready to cut open the frog and look into it's insides. It could be anything, really.

"Shanaynay" our frog (its a boy...)

Anyways, our teacher first opened the packet and dissected the frog and put it up on the projector so he could guide us through the dissection. It was really interesting to someone else do the dissection. I looked around the classroom to see some people anticipating with excitement to try it for themselves. Others... were either looking away or were grimacing. I was just more fascinated than any other emotion.

So, we finally got with our partners, grabbed our packet, tray, dissection scissors, tweezers, and our dead frog. (The one we got was packaged really weird because its leg went inward and was bent.) My partner, Rissa, and I opened the package and you could smell the chemicals instantly. It was horrible. The smell was already diffusing with the other 16/17 frogs so you could probably imagine the smell of the classroom. There was a lot of watery substance in our bag which was disgusting (it smelled bad. The color was slightly green like the frog. It got all over our pan.)

Before we could do anything, we had to identify its gender. I thought it was a girl but... Turns out I was wrong. (Never ask me to identify the gender of a frog because I'll be wrong.) I guess it would make sense to  kill mostly male frogs because females are the ones who reproduce. Since we thought it was a girl, we named it "Shanaynay" and never renamed it. So... Our boy frog had a very girly name.

"Crack." Whoops

Then, we went inside the mouth. My friend had to cut the jawline while I was the one to "pry" it open. It took us awhile but we finally opened it a little. The problem was, we couldn't see the esophagus because the whole was so small. So what did I do? I BROKE THE JAWBONE. Yup... At first, it scared me because I was pulling and then all of the sudden, we heard a "crack." At least we could see the mouth more. We explored the mouth and found some really interesting things...

Say "ahh!"

Next, we went INTO THE BODY! The skin was pretty easy to cut but it was the muscle under that was difficult. We had to be careful to not cut too far in or we would cut some of the organs. (Not a good thing.) We finally managed though to open the frog and see its insides. There was the tiny heart and lungs, the enormous liver, the stomach, the small and large intestines, and so much more.

Cut the skin

Cut the muscle and you have organs!

I was kinda disgusted but... It was pretty cool to see the anatomy of a frog compared to the human body. The small was a little nauseating and even writing this post made me a little nausea. (I am slightly ill right now so my system isn't as strong as it normally is.) Either way, I'm still happy to have done such a fun(?) project.

I remembered that one of my friends was getting all excited because she thought we were actually going to kill the frogs before dissecting... Poor Alex. Her hopes and dreams were crushed.

Now, I have a few more pictures from another group's dissection. They actually are some of the quietest people in our class but they did an amazing job in the dissection! I mean, the actually managed to find the brain of the frog, find the spinal cord, and managed to get all the organs of the respiratory and digestive system in one piece. Who knew that the quietest ones are the most... meticulous.

Le Organs

Mmm... Frog brains, anyone?

Spinal Cord!

I'm done with frogs for a long time now... And I can no longer look at frog legs the same again.

♥Petpet

*All frog dissection pictures belong to Petpet