section, bundles of what seems to be Type IIB cells can be seen throughout the slide. However, muscle fiber types are suppose to have a mosaic pattern, and bundles of a single fiber type tend not to be commonly seen. Follow up experimentation should be conducted to analyze various other muscle groups between the species. One weakness of our experiment was that we compared the MHG of a rat to the whole gastrocnemius of the chicken. Thus it was unclear whether our field of view under the microscope was the medial or lateral head. Future experimentation can look into the differences between the lateral and medial heads of the gastrocnemius between the species rather than only the medial head, and also between males and females. Other muscle groups can also be analyzed such as with the non-antigravity muscle groups such as the flexors. Furthermore, the biggest difference between the vertebrates is that birds have wings, so it would be interesting to investigate the differences between the pectoral muscles of the rat and chicken especially since chicken are non-migratory birds and do not utilize their wings continuously. Our study found that the rat had a significantly greater mean fiber area in FG and FOG compared to the chicken, but showed no significant difference in SO mean fiber area. The rat had noticeably larger cell frequency of FOG fiber types than the chicken, while the chicken had more SO fibers than the rat. Our results demonstrate that these domestic vertebrates have developed unique muscle fiber characteristics to fit their physical needs in motor movement for adaptation to the their environment.
IV.
References
Armstrong, R. B. (1984). Muscle Fiber Type Composition of the Rat Hindlimb. The American Journal of Anatomy 171.3: 259-72. Binder-Macleod, S., Scott, W., & Stevens, J. (2001). Human Skeletal Muscle Fiber Type Classifications. Physical Therapy. vol. 81 no. 11 1810-1816 Blank, J. (2015). Muscle Histochemistry Experiment. Department of Biological Sciences, Cal Poly. 1-6. Print