Erythrocyte diameter in tragulus javanicus, the chevrotain or mouse deer
✍ Scribed by Duke, Kenneth L.
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1963
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 471 KB
- Volume
- 147
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0003-276X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Erythrocytes in fixed organs of Trugulus jnvanicus, the mouse deer or chevrotain, were measured and found to average 1.5,~ in diameter. This confirms Gulliver's observations, made over a century ago, of the minuteness of these cells. If appears, from the literature, that Tragulus was considered to be a musk deer by Gulliver and others in his day. This probably accounts for the listing by most textbooks, even recent ones, of the musk deer as having the smallest mammalian erythrocyte.
It is the mouse deer (Trugulus) that has the smallest erythrocyte, not the musk deer (Moschus) and most certainly not the musk ox (Ovibos).
How the musk ox got into the picture is somewhat of a mystery.