View from the Animal Womb

A couple of weeks back I saw these amazing pictures of animals still in their wombs when they showed it on the news. Today I cam across the pictures again and I googled and found that these pictures are going to be in a movie showing on the National Geographic Channel in December. The two hour movie will show tiny pink elephant embryos, a teensy dog fetus with glowing blue eyes, and mini-dolphins swimming in their mother's belly. It will show in the United States on December 10 and in Germany on Christmas Day.

The film is made possible using technology developed at the beginning of the decade by veterinary scientist Thomas Hildebrandt, from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin. In addition to providing clear 3D images, his team was able to advance ultrasound techniques so as to make it possible to penetrate further than the 15 centimeters technology had allowed.

The result is a look inside the wombs of a wide variety of mammals, even including giants like elephants. Hildebrandt's system involves inserting an ultrasound scanner's head into the empty intestine of the pregnant elephant. When the fetus is visible, the ultrasound then goes into 3D mode, which produces up to 70 cross sections, which are then pieced together by a computer.

And viola! One can see the tiny eyes, trunk and wrinkles of elephant fetuses as young as 17 weeks. The technology is perfect for vets and for researchers.

Here are some of the pictures;