Dissection in biology provides a hands-on education above and beyond reading a textbook. By seeing, touching and exploring different organs, muscles and tissues inside an animal and seeing how they work together allows you to really understand your own body and appreciate the amazing world around us. And it’s not hard  – you can dissect a frog right at home using an inexpensive specimen with a dissection guide and simple dissection tools! Many doctors, surgeons and veterinarians report that their first fascination with the body started with a biology dissection class.

In today’s dissection, we’ll be looking at a frog. Frogs are members of the Class Amphibia. There are many things that make frogs interesting: they live both in water and on land, they actually begin life in water as limbless tadpoles, and some can change color depending on their environment.

Materials

• Frog (click if you need the whole frog kit, or here if you need only the frog)
• Dissection tools
• Dissection pins
• Dissection guide

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Procedure

1. Observe the external anatomy of your frog. See if you can locate the following:
   1. Hind legs with 5 webbed digits
   2. Front legs with four digits
   3. Skin
   4. Anus
   5. Eyes
   6. Tympanum (eardrum)
   7. Mouth
      1. Vomerine teeth
      2. Maxillary teeth
2. Cut open the frog
   1. Lay the frog on its back and pin its limbs to the tray
   2. Use forceps to lift some of the skin between the hind legs of the the frog, and use a scalpel to make a small incision
   3. Using scissors, cut up the center of the frog’s body, making sure to cut only through the skin
   4. Cut down the sides of the frog at either end of the cut, creating flaps of skin
   5. Pin the flaps to the dissection tray
   6. Repeat steps 2.3-2.5 but this time cut through the muscle of the frog
   7. Pin the muscle flaps to the dissection tray
3. Look for the following organs:
   1. Fat bodies
   2. Eggs (female specimens only)
   3. Heart
   4. Liver
   5. Gallbladder
   6. Stomach
   7. Small intestine
   8. Pancreas
   9. Spleen
   10. Ovaries and oviducts (female specimens only)
   11. Kidneys

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Click here to go to part:23 Owl Pellet Dissection