Grace's Microscope

Nucleated red blood cells from an avian blood smear, 1000x magnification.

Blood smear from a septic goat, 1000x magnification.

(incidental finding on an aspirate of a cat's lymph node)

Fine needle aspirate of a mandibular mass in a cat - probable oral squamous cell carcinoma. 1000x magnification.

Soft tissue sarcoma in a canine patient.

Fine needle aspirate of a canine lymph node at 1000x magnification. Unfortunately, this patient has lymphoma.

Ear swab from a craigslist kitten. Cocci bacteria and numerous white blood cells responding to/engulfing the bacteria. The kitten got a thorough ear cleaning and a course of medication. Stay tuned to see what else we found in her ears...

Here are two lice from an alpaca fiber sample. These are the species of biting louse that parasitize camelids, Damalinia breviceps, as opposed to the species of sucking louse, Microthoracius cameli. The two species look visually different at microscopic examination, and treatment options vary depending on which species is causing the infection.  

Cultured on Sheep Blood Agar.

Strongyle oocytes from an alpaca fecal sample. The number of eggs in this view of the slide is high, and this alpaca needed to be dewormed.

A flowing river of red blood cells.

Mixing things up with a video- here you can see a developing parasite larva from the fecal sample from a 7 year old male alpaca who has been having trouble keeping weight on.

Goat testis tissue sample.

Human vaginal tissue sample.

Tissue sample from a corpus luteum- the structure that forms on an ovary after ovulation and produces progesterone, a hormone that helps maintain a pregnancy in the female's body. Corpus luteum (CL) is latin for "Yellow Body" because when sliced into, the structure is yellow. When an animal is not pregnant, prostaglandin hormones cause the CL to regress, allowing the animal to go back into heat. On occasion, the CL will not regress so the animal will act like it is pregnant and not resume an estrus cycle. This is known as a retained, or persistent corpus luteum and can generally be treated with a hormone injection.

Kitten pituitary gland tissue sample.