Anatomia óssea e muscular do membro torácico de Chrysocyon brachyurus (Carnívora – Canidae) e suas correlações morfológicas e biométricas

Abstract

The maned wolf Chrysocyon brachyurus - Illiger, 1815, is the largest canid of South America. Having omnivorous habit, it inhabits the central region of Brazil, preferably the Cerrado (tropical savanna ecoregion). The study about the animal anatomy is of great importance in order to improve the knowledge about their organisms, mainly in wild animals for clinical, surgical and conservationist implications. It was aimed to describe the bony and muscular components of the thoracic limb; to make a statistical correlation, through biometrics, of the measurements of the forearm size in relation to the hand, to notice if the measurements are related to each other. The methodology adopted was the procedures of dissection of animals preserved in 10% formalin solution, and linear measurements with the aid of a caliper rule. The data were analyzed with BioEstat 5.3® software through descriptive statistics, with determination of arithmetic mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation. It was applied the unpaired Student t-test and, lastly, the Tukey’s test. The animals belong to the didactic collection of the Laboratory of Teaching and Research in Wild Animals of the UFU, and they are animals that were victims of running over. It was noticed that the anatomy of the maned wolves is similar to domestic dogs and other canids, but with characteristics very peculiar to this species, and that there is a strong correlation between the average of the forearm and the hand.