|
Department
of Zoology
|
Slide 18
This specimen represents a tissue smear, rather than a section. A drop of blood is placed on the slide and simply smeared across the surface. Ideally this technique creates a single layer of evenly-spaced cells. In practice, different locations in the smear have different quality. You should look for a place where the cells are neither packed together nor clumped but are more-or-less evenly spaced.
This particular blood sample was taken from a fish. All of the blood cells in this specimen have nuclei, even the red blood cells (the normal condition for all vertebrates except for mammals).
Note that the presence or absence of nuclei in red blood cells provides a readily visible indication of whether a tissue specimen came from a mammal or a vertebrate from some other class.
Additional blood smear specimens:
Comments and questions: dgking@siu.edu
Department of Zoology e-mail: zoology@zoology.siu.edu
Comments and questions related to web server: webmaster@science.siu.edu
SIUC / College of Science / Zoology / David King / ZOOL 409