Did you know that of the 135 previous specimen of the week posts only 20% of them have featured invertebrates! I’m abusing my specimen of the week writing privileges to do my best to address this grave misrepresentation. Poor invertebrates. This week I’ve chosen a specimen that is part biological material, part model that gives us an insight into how biology was taught in the past.

This week’s specimen of the week is…

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The dissected giraffe heart

No matter who you are or where you come from, you have to admire the giraffe’s heart. It manages to pump blood up arteries in a neck that can reach over two metres in length. It is helped out by a series of valves that prevent the blood from flowing back down again (except through the veins, in which it is supposed to flow back down again). The giraffe’s heart is, surprisingly, smaller than that of mammals of a comparative body size. The heart copes with the morphology of the animal by having really thick muscle walls and a small radius. The result is a very powerful organ. I wonder if that means giraffes fall in love really easily, or find it harder to get over their exes? (more…)