Anatomy of Lumbosacral Plexus in Hoary Fox (Lycalopex vetulus - LUND, 1842)

Abstract

The anatomy of wild animals is an involving and interesting area of biological studies in many countries around the world, since the major interest of understands biology, especially animals in extinction risk. Therefore, the objective of this work was dissect and describe the anatomy of lumbosacral plexus of Hoary Fox, a typical and yet little known animal in the Neotropical Cerrado. For this, two male and two female specimens obtained from accidental death on the roadsides of Brazilian Southeast of Goiás were used, both fixed in aqueous solution of 10% formaldehyde and dissected under traditional techniques of macroscopic anatomy. The findings showed that lumbosacral plexus of Hoary Fox is formed by intersecting of L5, L6, L7, S1, S2 and S3. A lumbar plexus and a sacral one are easily identified in this animal. The boundary between them is the trifurcated nerve (L7). The lumbosacral plexus provides three major nerves to the pelvic limb: femoral, obturator and sciatic, besides some small muscular branches. Discussing with specific literature, the present work demonstrated unpublished data about the anatomic standard of Hoary Fox in lumbosacral plexus, an important system in this animal biological system.