Placenta and fetal membranes of the four-toed elephant shrew, Petrodromus tetradactylus.
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Date
2004-11Author
Oduor-Okelo, D
Katema, RM
Carter, AM
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The four-toed elephant shrew is the only extant member of the genus Petrodromus. Some features of its placentation are found in other elephant shrews and may be important in consolidating the elephant shrews in the order Macroscelidea. These include implantation in an embryo chamber at the caudal end of the uterine horn; a large yolk sac; a large, lobulated allantoic sac; a distinct layer of proliferative trophoblastic cells between the labyrinthine and spongy zones of the placenta; an accessory epitheliochorial placenta; and the formation of a mesoplacenta by the decidua basalis. Of particular note are the large granulated cells that occupy the walls of decidual, myometrial and mesometrial arteries. They appear to be uterine natural killer cells. The persistence of a relatively large yolk sac and a large lobulated allantoic sac is a feature which Petrodromus and other elephant shrews share with other members of the superordinal clade Afrotheria.
URI
http://hinari-gw.who.int/whalecomwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/whalecom0/pubmed/15451195http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/39206
Citation
Placenta. 2004 Nov;25(10):803-9.Publisher
University of Nairobi. Department of Veterinary Anatomy
Collections
- Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) [10377]