In science teacher Mr. Brady Green’s Zoology classes, students were recently tasked with dissecting all different types of animals. In small groups, the students were given the animals to complete the task.

  The animals are shipped to classroom and preserved using different types of chemicals. According to Senior Logan Harrity, “Some of the animals we have dissected have been the tarantula, squid, grasshopper and crayfish.” Harrity said his favorite animal to dissect was the “squid as I know next to nothing about them.” He enjoyed “really opening it up let me see what was inside and all the extremities.”

      Senior Dyllan Dinbokowitz agreed, saying with the squid being her favorite “because seeing the ink sac and the pen was very interesting.” According to pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov “The pen, or gladius, of the squid is an internalized shell. It serves as a site of attachment for important muscle groups and as a protective barrier for the visceral organs.”

  Dinbokowitz explains how they observed “the circulatory system, the adaptations including the skin which chang[ed] color even when dead.” This can be explained by “energy loss in the chromatophore organs causes muscle relaxation and retraction of the chromatophore sac” according to ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com. “If you rub really hard on a white area of the squid’s skin, you will be able to break open some of the color sacs and make the color more visible” states gillylab.stanford.edu. Dinbokowitz continued “We also looked at the ink and the system of how that works as a defense mechanism along with its tentacles and propulsion.”

     Harrity explains the process and how the groups “sliced it open with one of the sharp tools as was asked in our lab. Every group had a kit with all sorts of tools to be used to slice and pull apart. Sometimes we had to use our hands but had plastic gloves to wear. Sometimes we even [dissected] multiple creatures at a time. One being both the tarantula and the crayfish.” Harrity states that “later we may dissect a shark which is super exciting.”