Frog Dissection Tutorial

One of the highlights, or lowlights, of a biology class is the dissection of a frog. The exercise can be pretty messy if you don’t know what you’re doing. Fortunately, there are good instructions to help students do the right things and complete the frog dissection successfully.

To dissect a frog, you need these things: a tray, pins, forceps, scalpel, dissection scissors, gloves, goggles, and probes. It is recommended that you get a preserved frog. If you use a living frog, you will have to put it in a bottle or jar and drop a cotton ball of chloroform to put it into deep sleep. Make sure you set up the frog dissection station correctly and know the tools well.

The frog needs to be rinsed in water and placed in a tray on its back. Then, the pins should be used to pin the limbs to the tray so the frog stays in place during the dissection. Before starting, remember to put on the protective gear (the gloves and goggles). Safety rules should always be observed when you are handling anything that was once alive.

First, begin the dissection by using the scalpel to place small cuts on the skin between the frog’s legs. Then, use the dissection scissors to slice the frog’s stomach open, slitting the abdominal muscles. Be careful to only cut the outer skin – you don’t want to cut into any internal organs.

Cut all along the frog’s body from the bottom of its neck until you get to the bottom of the body. Once this is done, make horizontal cuts near its arms and legs. Go back again with the scalpel this time and you should now be slicing into thicker muscles. You should now be able to pull away all of the skin here and expose the frog’s .

Once you have completed the cutting, you should be able to get a good look at everything inside the frog. Frogs have a truly fascinating internal organ system. First, you will be able to find the frog’s heart, which has three chambers and is located near the center of its body. You can cut that open if you want to have a look.

You can also identify the rest of its organs using diagrams to identify what you find. In addition to the heart, you will find the gallbladder, the pancreas, the small intestine, the stomach, the large intestine, the spleen, and the bladder. In female frogs, you should also be able to locate the ovaries. In male frogs, you should find the testes as well. In some females, there are even eggs present.

The frog’s – vital to its ability to hop – can also be studied with further dissection. This is a little bit more difficult because the muscles are covered by a thin layer of skin that has to be removed. If you wish, you can further peel back the frog’s skin and use the scalpel to cut it away until the frog’s skeletal system is exposed. However, most frog dissections only require you to expose the internal organs and study them.

While some people are not comfortable with frog dissection, it is truly a fascinating way to learn about how a living thing works. Dissecting a frog may be tedious but you can discover a lot about a frog’s anatomy.