Note: If you have a weak stomach, then this post is not for you. Move along…So, today I had my annelid dissection- an earthworm. As I am sure I have mentioned before, I love my lab group. Here’s the run-down of who is in it-
Brett- who I went to preschool with. He’s just insane. Not exactly the sharpest crayon in the box, but we can deal. He’s not normally in my group, but he was a nice substitute for Luke, let me tell you. Luke’s a pain.
Jordan- who always works with me. She’s scared of touching things that squirm, so she left the dissection to me. She’s a happy emo, which is very rare, but we don’t judge.
Tyler- my fellow drama sheep. He’s a crazy man. And scared of worms. He has way too much fun in labs.
So, we were divided up into two groups, me with Jordan and Brett with Tyler. We each received a worm, and hilarity ensued.
When it comes to dissections, I am extremely careful. I pay attention to detail. I am in the zooooooooooone. But I digress. I cut the first incision about half an inch above the setae and then sliced right down the skin. It was a beautiful incision. The only mistake I made was accidentally nicking the intestine, which was a little gross. So we pinned the skin back and gazed in awe of my handiwork. Then looked to Brett and Tyler’s worm. It was still whole. And squirming a bit. The alcohol hadn’t quite taken effect on the worms yet, which ended up being an advantage. But Tyler had pinned the posterior end of the worm and part of the anterior, but the worm was still unscathed.
“Uhhh…Tyler? Why aren’t you cutting your worm?”
“I’m scared of it. It grosses me out.”
“Brett, why don’t you cut it?”
“Likewise.”
So, guess who ended up cutting the worm. I enjoy this way too much.
After we did our lab and diagrammed all of the parts, We decided to have some fun with the worms. My wonderfully cut worm was being passed around our lab station for diagramming, but Tyler and Brett’s which had virtually been butchered, was fair game. If it hadn’t been killed by the alcohol, Tyler’s horrible attempt at incisions had done the job. Tyler popped a heart. I popped a heart. Jordan ran out of the room and puked. Then I accidentally poked the ventral blood vessal on my worm. It was one of the grossest (and coolest) things I had ever seen. With each beat of the worm’s heart (for all you animal rights people, don’t worry. Their sensory perception was gone before we made the first incision. Plus Tyler severed the nerve cord, so they were stuck anyway). Blood spurted out with each beat. It was nasty.
And with that story said, I’m off to lunch now.
Yum.
4 comments:
I had to do that in biology in the ninth grade, a long, long time ago. I hated it. We had to do a worm, a frog, and the teacher did a little shark for us.
I did it, because it was for a grade, but I hated doing it, even though they were already dead.
My older sister has your attitude. She loved doing it.
JAM,
We're also doing a frog, squid, hydra, star fish, and a crayfish.
I love this stuff.
you are too much
OH, Becky! I loved dissecting, too! We did a worm, a starfish, and some other things that I can't remember but one thing I DO remember is that Mr. Burdell, our biology teacher, went to the local chicken farm and got chickens for us to dissect! Although it was pretty gross, I still enjoyed it. Mine had eggs that were still in the forming stage in whatever-you-call-that-tube-they-come-out-of-thingy. LOL It was neat but pretty messy, needless to say.
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