Radiographic location of the aortic arch and its branches in domestic cats and eurasian lynx

Abstract

Relevance. The domestic cat (Felis catus) and the eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) belong to the same family — feline, predatory order. The cat was domesticated more than 10 thousand years ago. Lynx is the most promising animal for domestication. It is successfully bred in fur farms and, which is no longer uncommon, is kept by private owners as a pet. At the same time, the anatomy of these animals has not been studied to date. This makes it much more difficult to provide medical care and does not allow us to trace changes in organs with intensive anthropogenic impact on the body during domestication. In this regard, the study of the morphology of the eurasian lynx is very relevant and timely. Material for research (11 eurasian lynx corpses) wasobtained in hunting farms of the North-Western region of the Russian Federation. Corpses of a domestic cat (mestizos) were obtained from veterinary clinics of St. Petersburg (15 animals studied).Methods. A complex of modern and traditional methods was used in the study: fine anatomical dissection, angiorentgenography, computed tomography; production of corrosive and enlightened vascular preparations, morphometry and photographing.Results. The domestic cat (Felis catus) and the eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) have significant differences in the topography and branching of the aortic arch and thoracic aorta, despite the close relationship in taxonomy. The eurasian lynx is characterized by the presence of a brachiocephalic trunk and a trunk of common carotid arteries. Similar vascular structures are absent in a domestic cat. For them, the presence of the brachiocephalic artery and the independent departure of the right and left common carotid arteries, without the formation of a common trunk, was established. At the same time, we state that some main arterial transport vessels and their branches in these animals have common principles of location. This pattern has been determined for the vertebral, internal and external thoracic arteries, including their branches of the first order.