Introduction
The frog is the most widely used animal for laboratory dissections and anatomy lessons. The frog is in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Lissamphibia, order Anura. Most frogs used for dissection are from the family Ranidae, genus Rana.
Careful dissection methods along with reading these instructions before you being will help you to avoid damaging features of the frog.
It is important to keep your frog moist throughout the dissection process. Use moist towels to cover your specimen between dissection days. You may also need to occasionally put some drops of water on the specimen using a water bottle.
Anatomical Terms
Throughout this dissection several terms are used to denote the location of various body parts. You should familiarize yourself with the following words and their definitions:
Cranial - toward the head, forward
Caudal- toward the rear, backward
Dorsal - toward the backbone
Ventral - toward the belly
Lateral - toward the side
Medial - toward the midline
OBTAIN a specimen. Be sure to rinse it off prior to using it.
Video on External Anatomy, abt 5 mins
