Abstract
BackgroundElephants are the largest and heaviest living terrestrial animals, but information on their histology is still lacking. This study provides a unique insight into the elephant’s organs and also provides a comparison between juvenile Asian elephants and adult Asian elephants or other species. Here we report on the histological structure of 24 organs, including the skin, brain (cerebrum, cerebellar hemisphere, vermis, thalamus, midbrain), spinal cord, sciatic nerve, striated skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle, bone (flat bone and long bone), cartilage (hyaline cartilage and fibrocartilage), heart (right atrium, right ventricle), blood vessels (aorta, pulmonary artery and caudal vena cava), trunk, trachea, lung, tongue, esophagus, stomach, small intestine (duodenum, jejunum, ileum), large intestine (cecum, colon, rectum), liver and pancreas, kidney, ovary, uterus (body and horn) and spleen of two juvenile Asian elephants.MethodsTissue sections were stained with Harris’s hematoxylin and eosin Y.ResultsWhile almost all structures were similar to those of other species or adult elephants, some structures were different from other mammalian species, such as: plexiform bone was found in flat bone only; a thin trachealismuscle was observed in the trachea; and no serous or mucinous glands were found in the submucosa of the trachea.DiscussionHistological information from various organs can serve as an important foundation of basal data for future microanatomical studies, and help in the diagnosis and pathogenesis in sick elephants or those with an unknown cause of death.
Highlights
Elephants are the largest land animals and consist of two extant genera within the family Elephantidae: Elephas (Asian elephant; Elephas maximus) and Loxodonta (African elephant; Loxodonta africana)
These juvenile elephants were deemed fit to serve as the subjects of our microanatomy study
Cardiovascular system In this study, we found that the histology of cardiac muscle taken from a juvenile Asian elephant was similar to human and other animal models (Aughey & Frye, 2001b; Bacha & Bacha, 2000; Lawlor et al, 2016), but mostly similar to the horse which is another large mammal (Aughey & Frye, 2001b; Bacha & Bacha, 2000)
Summary
Elephants are the largest land animals and consist of two extant genera within the family Elephantidae: Elephas (Asian elephant; Elephas maximus) and Loxodonta (African elephant; Loxodonta africana). Studying the body structure and organ function in elephants is not easy. They cannot be kept and fed in a research facility like some other animals, and most are living in the wild, far away from the laboratory. Elephants are classified as threatened or endangered species For these reasons, studies on the body structure and organ function of elephants has been limited, and even studies on one, two or three animals are still valuable (Ahasan et al, 2016; Egger et al, 2008; Meyer, Weissengruber & Busche, 2010; Papageorgopoulou, Link & Ruhli, 2015; Spearman, 1970; Van Aswegen et al, 1994, 1996). Discussion: Histological information from various organs can serve as an important foundation of basal data for future microanatomical studies, and help in the diagnosis and pathogenesis in sick elephants or those with an unknown cause of death
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