Iraqi Journal of Veterinary Sciences

Given the physiological significance and the need for further physiological and morphological knowledge of the adrenal glands, the objectives of the current study were to compare morphometric data between the right and left adrenals of male squirrels and hamsters. The study was conducted on five squirrel males and five hamster males. The glands in both animals were removed and fixed in neutral formalin solution. It was found that the squirrel contains two brown-colored right and left adrenal glands connected anteriorly and medially to each cranial pole of the kidney, and the right adrenal gland had a longitudinal shape, while the left gland had an oval shape. Hamsters had two pairs of brown adrenal glands located anteriorly attached to each kidney's cranial pole. The right adrenal gland was round in shape, while the left was oval. The statistical results showed a significant difference between the left and right suitable adrenal glands in both animals, as well as a significant difference between the squirrel gland and the hamster gland, where it was found that the right and left squirrel glands are larger more significant, heavier, longer and thicker than the adrenal gland in hamsters after the following measures were adopted: weight, length, thickness, width, and size. 

The current study examined 100 small intestines collected randomly from sheep slaughtered in the abattoir and butcher’s shops from different Mosul city / Iraq areas of both sexes (55 females, 45 males) and different ages. Moniezia expansa was diagnosed in 9 samples of intestines by studying the morphometric characteristics of these tapeworms, especially the mature segments, in which both the ovaries and vitelline glands appeared in the ring shape on either side of the body segments and the rosette-like shape of the interproglotidial glands. No significant difference was noticed between males and females of sheep in our study, and the infection rate was 10% in sheep less than a year old and older than two years, with no significant difference between the age groups. The results of the molecular analysis by using conventional polymerase chain reaction technique confirmed the diagnosis of these worms, which belong to the genus Moniezia, with a product reaction of 700 base pairs. The sequencing result shows two strains of Moniezia expanza, which isolated from Iraq (Moniezia expansa-Iraqi one and Moniezia expansa-Iraqi 2) were similar to each other had a significant distance to other strains. The study also showed that Moniezia expansa is different from the same species in other countries.