The purpose of this course is for the student to become acquainted with tissues, organs, and organ systems on a microscopic level. Stress will be placed on cell and tissue structure and how this structure relates to function of the tissue or organ. The course will deal primarily with mammalian (especially human) histology, but selected comparative examples from other vertebrate groups will also be included. Laboratory will stress recognition of cells, tissues, and organs and their structural components. There will be 3 Lecture Exams and 3 Laboratory Exams which will be assigned the values given below.

TEXTBOOK

Kardong, K.V. 2009. Vertebrates: Comparative Anatomy, Function Evolution. 5th ed. McGraw-Hill, Boston.

LABORATORY ATLAS

(1) Laboratory Studies of Vertebrate and Invertebrate Embryos - Schoenwolf, 8th Ed. (2001)

(2) Vertebrate Dissection - Walker and Homberger, 9th Ed. (2000)

GRADUATE CREDIT

Students taking this course for graduate credit (BIOL 581, BIOL 792) will be required to complete a short term paper (5-8 pages) dealing with some aspect of functional morphology or evolution in vertebrate animals. References cited in the paper must be primarily from journals in research on these topics is reported (available in the Lommen Library). This paper will be graded on a pass/fail basis, separate from the class. A failing grade on this paper will automatically drop the class grade by one letter.