BREEDING OF MOUSE DEER FOR AN EXPERIMENTAL ANL\IAL AND ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS



Katsuhiro Fukuta(1*), Hiroshi Kudo(2), Syde Jalaludini(3)

(1) Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusaku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
(2) National lnstitute of Animal Industry, Inashjki-gun, lbaraki 305-0901, Japan
(3) Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia 30
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract


Lesser mouse-deer, Tragulur javanicur, was bred for the purpose to develop a new
experimental animals in the field of animal science and veterinary medicine. Captive mousedeer were able to be tame well by hand feeding, although they are nervous and shy in temper. Stainless steel cage (60 cm X 60cm X 60cm) was enough for their breeding. Morphologically, the rumen, reticulum, and abomasum of mouse-deer were similar with those of domestic ruminants, except that the omasum was vestigial. The colon showed a characteristic spiral loop of double strands. The erythrocytes of mouse-deer were markedly small in size and their shape was variety, such as spherical, oval, triangular, disc, and biconcave disc. Unique holes were recognized on the cell membrane of many erythrocytes. They seemed not to perforate the cell, but to be pits of various depth. The membrane of the pits was trilaminar structure as well as other part ot' erythrocytes. The mouse-deer was able to breed young in the laboratory. It is considered that lesser mouse-deer is very interesting animal to use for research not only as a small niminant, but also as a ancestral artiodactyls to study the evolution of ruminants and erythrocytes.


Keywords


Mouse-deer, Rumen, Ruminant, Erythrocyte

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