Durban — The South African Association for Marine Biological Research (Saambr) recently conducted an underwater ultrasound on a pregnant thorntail stingray at uShaka Marine World.
Saambr spokesperson Ann Kunz said it was an exciting day last week Friday when Saambr veterinarian Dr Francois Lampen joined his colleagues, Dr Justin Hart and Dr Ryan Daly, in the Open Ocean Exhibit armed with an underwater ultrasound machine.
“It was the very first time that we had been able to carry out an ultrasound on any of our fish, sharks and rays while they went about their day in their exhibit oblivious to the fact that a medical examination was taking place,” Kunz said.
“We knew that one of the thorntail rays was pregnant as we could see her ‘bump’, but we were unsure exactly how far along she was. As she generally spends a fair amount of time resting on the bottom of the exhibit (as rays do), we were confident that we would be able to hover over her long enough to capture video and images of her embryos.
“Even though we were confident she was pregnant when we actually saw three healthy embryos wriggling around on the ultrasound monitor, we could hardly contain our excitement,” Kunz said.
She said that in her last litter, the ray gave birth to six pups, so they anticipated that by refining the technique they would likely to be able to see more pups on the ultrasound. The smallest litter size they have had before was four pups.
Kunz added that going forward, they would hopefully be able to use this technique to monitor the organs of other animals in their care without having to either sedate or restrain them.
Aquarium curator, Dr Hart said: “By using this novel method of monitoring the gestation period over multiple pregnancies, we will be able to get a better understanding of their embryonic development. This method is non-invasive and doesn’t require sedation which means we can monitor them on a frequent basis.”
Dr Lampen said the ultrasound was on loan from Sonorite Veterinary Imaging but they intended purchasing their own.
He said the underwater ultrasound they were using was an ultrasound that was generally used on terrestrial mammals which they had modified so they could use it underwater.
“We will initially be using the underwater ultrasound on sharks and rays before we work with fish such as potato bass and other species of fish which can be trained to limit their movements for short periods,” Dr Lampen said.
WhatsApp your views on this story at 071 485 7995.
Daily News