BOVINE IMAGES

How to use these images


IMPORTANT: To see an enlarged image, click on any image you see in LORI. Then, RIGHT click on the enlarged image to save it at its full size.


Monday, September 30, 2013

Quadruplet bovine pregnancy


Keywords: quadruplets, bovine, cow, pregnancy, placenta, allantois, allantochorion


Image size: 1000 x 807px

Old images (~1975) of bovine quadruplets at about 35 days of gestation. This was found in a slaughter specimen where the cervix had been traumatized (and was in a state of healing) and multiple corpora lutea were present in both ovaries. Presumably an attempt had been made to super-ovulate this cow and collect embryos earlier in gestation. Therefore it is unlikely that this pregnancy was the result of spontaneous multiple ovulations. Spontaneous triplets occur in about 1 in 10,000 calvings but quadruplets are so rare that their incidence cannot be accurately reported. Reports suggest that they may occur in about one in a half million calvings.

This specimen was interesting from a two of points of view. First, despite fetal overcrowding, the uterus was able to sustain a quadruplet pregnancy to this stage and second, the fact that the chorions of all four pregnancies had fused yet differential staining of each fetus (methylene blue, clear, dark iodine and light iodine) showed that the allantois of each fetus remained separate. This is shown below.



Image size: 1000 x 806px