MORTICIA FINALLY GETS EXAMINED!! For awhile already we observed a lump on Morticias back that started growing rapidly within the last few weeks. Morticia is together with her three siblings Pugsly, Gomez and Wednesday a member of the infamous Addams Family. Being removed from their mother’s womb after she was shot, the four siblings are part of The AfriCat Foundation since their first day of life. Due to the fact that The Addams Family was hand-raised and needed to be bottle-fed every four hours, the cats became very tame and too habituated to humans to release them back into the wild. They all have grown into beautiful and strong cats and act as ambassador cheetahs ever since to create awareness and educate tourists from all over the world about the enduring plight of the cheetah. They’ve become one of the most popular cheetah coalitions in the AfriCat Carnivore Care Center. Morticias distinctive feature is her upwards curled tail that visually distinguishes her from her brothers and sister and that is most likely a result of a genetic defect. With her 12 years Morticia is a relatively old cat. The life span of wild and captive cheetahs varies tremendously. While the life span of captive cheetahs usually ranges from 12 – 15 years (some live as long as 20 years), do wild cheetahs mostly reach an age of only 5 – 7 years, very few live longer than 8. Captive cheetahs occupy an excellent health care – diseases can be detected at an early stage and be treated early accordingly. Furthermore are they not exposed to predators - with man being the wild cheetahs’ biggest threat. Dr. David Roberts, AfriCat’s newly employed vet, darted Morticia yesterday morning in order to have a thorough and careful look at her lump. Initially expecting that it was a simple abscess, the diagnosis, however, turned out to be more difficult. Dr. Roberts started the procedure by trying to aspirate the lesion with a syringe to see if he can withdraw pus or not. When he noticed that that the lump didn’t contain any purulent liquid, he decided to make a small incision to further investigate the contents of the lump. He found that the lump was filled with fatty tissue which most likely speaks in favor of a so-called lipoma – a benign tumor that is composed of adiposed tissue that mostly develops between the skin and the underlying muscle layer. A tissue sample was taken that will undergo further pathological examinations to determine an accurate diagnosis. The incision was closed with a few stitches and Morticia brought back to her siblings. After slowly waking up under monitored conditions in a crate, Morticia was released 3 hours later. Team AfriCat
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 13:17:18 +0000
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