Life Ghosts in the Womb
posted by November 22 at 11:14 AM
onThat is a fetal elephant, in utero, scanned and photographed for a National Geographic documentary.
Here is a golden retriever:
Don’t they look like ghosts? Luminous, insubstantial, like they’re not really in the world yet, like they could disappear at any moment. I’d like to think of fetuses as tiny ghosts—that’s almost sweeter and more poetic than the theory of homunculi.
Slightly less poetic is this quote, from one of the filmmakers:
“Animals were trained to sit still near the scanners and we also inserted cameras into the womb via the elephant’s rectum—but it has been worth it.
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It's kinda like how scientists always look like they're working in futuristic space-stations in media images. With the right lighting, things can look pretty ethereal, even when they're not.
How d'ya get to the womb via the rectum? That's some craaaazy anatomy...
my girlfriend is really looking forward to this one.
Hey, that's how you get to MY womb TOO!
"we also inserted cameras into the womb via the elephant’s rectum—but it has been worth it."
But would the elephant agree?
And yes, elephant anatomy is strange:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/214195_elephant02.html
Which leads one to wonder. Imagine if humans shared elephant reproductive anatomy. What would the Catholic church then have to say about anal intercourse?
i love these photos. thank you.
These photos are beautiful. I always think fetuses are pretty smashed up in the womb, but these both look like they're floating in space. Lookit the liddle claws on the pup! Sweeeet.
They are pretty smashed in there at the end of pregnancy, Geneiveve. Curled into a ball, and in "slender" pregnant girls you can quite make out the baby's shape inside by touching the mother's belly. That should be a pic taken in mid pregnancy (human foetuses are that confortable around week 20). Pregnancy for elephants lasts 22 MONTHS, if I remember well, and that gives plenty of time to get a good pic.
Thanks for the info, tinydoc. Both of these fetuses look so fully formed that I assumed they were near the end of term. Even their proportions seem right. The elephant, well, looks like an elephant (due to the long gestation, I guess?), and the dog looks like a newborn puppy (helloooooo big head!).
I checked the National Geographic site and the elephant pic was aparently taken at the 15th month of pregnancy. The dog's pic seems to be at day 45 out of 60
I guess we are different. We are told that human unborn are just like tumors or clumps of cells. But other mammals, as depicted above, are fully formed. I saw an elephant and a puppy not tumors or clumps.
Isn't that because this elephant and this puppy are much, much further into their development?
If you ever tried aborting these animals, Liberals would have a FIT. PETA screaming murder, etc.
However, do it to a human, and it's a 'right'.
Wow, I'm amazed Liberals heads don't explode with all the contradictions that are abound in their tiny little brains.
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