THE OVARY OF CHINCHILLA LANIGERA IN CAPTIVITY

G.SÁNCHEZ TORANZO; TORRES LUQUE A; GRAMAJO BÜHLER MC; BÜHLER M I

ANIMAL REPRODUCTION SCIENCE

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2013

0378-4320

Chinchilla is one of the most valuable rodents in the fur industry, especially the lanigera variety. An important problem of the intensive breeding of chinchillas is their low reproductive rate, so that they are an interesting species to study the reproductive physiology of the females in captivity. The morphology of chinchilla ovary agrees for the most part with the description made for other South American hystricognath rodents, especially as regards anatomy and, to a lesser degree, histology. The presence of numerous primary follicles throughout the annual cycle show that they constitute the follicular reserve and that a small number of follicles are recruited to initiate growth and differentiation during folliculogenesis. The females usually have one, and exceptionally two, embryos that survive to term Some primary follicles with two or more oocytes were found; Such polyovular follicles were not found in the other follicular development stages, suggesting that they do not develop or are eliminated. In chinchilla, we can observe only one or two big corpora lutea (CL) and three or five small corpora lutea or accessory CL. The presence of these accessories CL might reflect the importance of the maintenance of continuous hormonal production to support prolonged gestation. In chinchilla, no corpora albicans were observed. However, atretic CL was also present, showing signs of degeneration in luteal cells. The interstitial cells distributed throughout the cortex was the main histological feature in comparison with previous reports in other species Antral atresia was observed in all sizes of antral follicles, basal atresia was confined exclusively to smaller follicles.