Elephants in the womb

[Guest guest]

Amazing picture here:

 

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/inside-an-elephants-womb/2006/11/24/11638\

71581868.html

 

 

Floating life in an elephant's belly

 

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[image: The elephant in the womb.]

 

The elephant in the womb.

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November 24, 2006 - 8:40AM

 

 

Of all the epic adventures that might await an elephant roaming the

wilderness, few can match its astonishing journey through the womb from

one-centimetre foetus to birth as a calf weighing 118 kilograms.

 

Researchers for a two-hour documentary film, *Animals in the Womb*, used

scans to track elephant calves for the first time during their 22-month

gestation - the longest of any mammal.

 

The photos chart every stage until the unborn elephant is ready to emerge

into the world and take its place among the giants of the animal kingdom.

 

Elephant mothers had to be trained to sit next to the scanners, and cameras

were inserted into the womb to take clearer pictures.

 

At 16 weeks, the foetus begins to look like an elephant as it develops a

trunk. Two weeks later it is seen exercising its trunk and legs, and ears

that already detect sound start to grow.

 

By 12 months, the foetus is a replica of what will emerge 10 months later £

except it is just 45 centimetres long.

 

*Animals in the Womb*, which also focuses on the early life of a dolphin and

a dog, was made by the same team that produced Life Before Birth, about the

growth of a human foetus.

 

The filmmakers used digital technology to help produce the images.

 

Producer Jeremy Dear, of Pioneer Productions, said: " These kinds of images

have never been seen before ... The film underlines some fascinating facts

about our evolutionary heritage and you can't help but be moved by each of

our animal's journey towards birth, " Dear said.

 

" It offers a pretty extraordinary window on this previously unseen world.

 

" One incredible thing about the early images is how the animal embryos are

very similar to human ones. It shows we humans share a common mammalian

ancestry early on in life, " he said.

 

Watching the animals in the womb gives a fascinating peek at evolutionary

history. The dolphin's development gives a nod to its land-dwelling

ancestors as tiny leg-like buds come and go in the first month.The bone

structure of its fins bears a startling resemblance to human hands.

 

Conversely, the elephant could have once lived in the sea. Scans on the

four-month-old elephant embryo reveal kidney ducts that are more commonly

found in freshwater fish and frogs.

 

" We worked with dozens of zoos and animal sanctuaries across the world.

There were a lot of different challenges. But it has been worth it, " Dear

said.

 

Of the sequence following the development of the elephant, he said: " When it

is finally born there is not a dry eye in the house. "