Study in Normal Healthy Body Ratio, the Clinical Value of Lymph Diluted Blood in Mauremys mutica

Mauremys mutica is one of four native turtle species in Taiwan. However, the populations are decreasing due to multiple reasons. Luckily, there are more and more conservative activities concerning about them. But, at the mean time, there is little study about their basic hematological and biochemical reference. The aim of this study is to establish the basic hematological and biochemical values of Mauremys mutica. Also, we discuss the clinical values of blood-lymph mixture sample. This problem is commonly encountered in reptilian medicine. Hope these data will be beneficial to field work and conservative medicine on this species.
This study could be divided into three parts: 1. study in normal healthy body ratio, 2. analysis of blood samples, 3. the effect of environmental factors on the blood values. In the study of healthy body ratio, 36 turtles were used to establish Jackson’s ratio, the equation of logarithm body weight regressed against logarithm carapace length.
In the second and third part of study, 36 turtles, 9 males and 27 females were taken blood from sub-carapacial sinus at 2009/6, 2009/9, 2010/1, and 2010/4, and a additional blood samples were taken from jugular vein at 2010/4. Data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance for significant ( P<0.05) variation of the basis of sex, seasons, sites of blood were obtained and interaction between them. Significant sex differences were observed for Calcium, Glucose, Cholesterol and Triglyceride. Marked seasonal variation was noted in most parameters except the ratio of heterophil, lymphocyte, calcium, uric acid, cholesterol and total protein. On site differences, in addition to ALT, creatinine and BUN, values obtained from jugular vein were significant higher than those obtained from sub-carapacial sinus. And the lymph-blood mixture can still present season variation and physiological changes in Mauremys mutica.
This study offer clinicians another possible option when we are talking about blood sampling in chelonians. These data may attribute to the conservation and clinical work about Mauremys mutica.