After an eventful first morning of animal vines & memes as well as insightful discussion, the Animals in Society DT headed out to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh for our first excursion. There, we made our way to the the “Windows on Animal Health” section where we witnessed the medical checkup of a unique and feisty turtle. With its unusually long neck, tiny beady eyes, square-shaped head, jagged shell, and shedding skin, this turtle was quite a sight.
Afterwards, we were allowed access into the lab and got to know the vets and interns. They mainly work with reptiles and amphibians at the museum because they are generally easy to take care of. However, because there are so many unfamiliar species of reptiles and amphibians, one of the biggest challenges of their work is not having extensive knowledge on every specimen. Instead, they sometimes have to conduct research by drawing existing information from other closely-related species to make inferences.
We also found it interesting that all of the interns are planning on going into human medicine but are currently working with animals because there are many similarities between the two.
