Dissection Guide
1. Lay the frog on its back, spread out its limbs, and pin them to the tray. Use forceps to lift the skin between the
hind legs and make a small incision with a scalpel. Continue the cut up the center of the frog’s body with
scissors, being careful to cut through the skin only. Use forceps to hold the skin away from the muscle while
you cut, if necessary. Make horizontal incisions just above the legs and just below the arms, then fold the
resulting flaps back and pin them. (You may need to use a scalpel to help separate the skin from the muscle
underneath as you fold it back.)
2. Repeat the incisions as before, this time cutting through the muscle layer to a point just below the arms. Lift
the muscle with the forceps to prevent cutting the organs underneath.
3. When you reach the area just below the arms, turn your scissors and make horizontal cuts through the hard
sternum. Repeat the horizontal cuts just above the arms, and then remove the bony strips entirely. Pin the
remaining muscle flaps back, just as with the skin.
4. Look into the body cavity. The yellow finger-like projections on the sides are the fat bodies. It may be necessary
to remove some of these in order to see the organs clearly. Likewise, a female specimen may have well-
developed eggs filling the body cavity and obscuring the organs. Remove them as necessary.
Identify the following internal parts:
Heart. The frog’s heart is the small triangular organ at the top. Unlike a mammal heart, it only has three chambers —
two atria at the top and one ventricle below. Carefully cut away the pericardium, the thin membrane surrounding the
heart. Notice the arteries connected to the top of the heart, giving it a ‘Y’ shape.
Liver. Just below the heart, the three-lobed liver is the largest organ in the frog’s body.
Gall Bladder. Lift up the lobes of the liver to find the small greenish-brown sac of the gall bladder nestled between
them. This stores bile produced by the liver.
Lungs. Again, lift the lobes of the liver to locate the lungs on either side of the heart. They are made of a spongy
tissue.
Stomach. Curving below the liver is the stomach; it looks like a large whitish tube. After identifying the other organs,
you can open the stomach and see what the frog ate. (Frogs swallow their food whole.)
Small Intestine. The stomach connects to the small intestine. The first section, or duodenum, is fairly straight, but
the rest of the intestine is coiled and held in place by a blood-vessel-filled membrane called the mesentery.
Pancreas. The pancreas is a thin, flat, ribbon-like organ that lies between the stomach and the small intestine.
Large Intestine. The small intestine narrows to the point where it meets the shorter, broader large intestine. This
opens into a chamber called the cloaca, the last stop before wastes exit the body through the cloacal opening, or
anus. The frog’s sperm or eggs also exit through the cloaca.
Spleen. Lift the small intestine to find the round, reddish spleen attached to the mesentery on the underside. The
spleen stores blood as part of the circulatory system.
Ovaries. Female frogs have ovaries full of dark-colored eggs; if the eggs are well-developed, the ovaries will be very
large and visible. If not, lift the stomach and intestines to see the ovaries beneath them.
Oviducts. Move the ovaries to one side to see the coiled tubes of the oviducts. If the eggs in the ovaries are not fully
developed, the oviducts will be small and tightly coiled.
Kidneys. The kidneys are flat, oval-shaped organs on the back wall of the body cavity beneath the ovaries.
Testes. Male frogs have bean-shaped testes attached to their kidneys.