Penile and prostate morphology of the African giant pouched rat

Abstract

The African giant pouched rat, Cricetomys gambianus is a solitary rodent, distributed in savannah of Southern and Eastern Africa with socio-economical importance in landmines and tuberculosis detection. Despite of their importance, there are limited anatomical studies focusing on the reproductive organs of C. gambianus. This study was set to evaluate gross and histological features of the penis and prostate glands of C. gambianus. Ten sexually matured C. gambianus (1.0 + 0.1kg) were trapped from the wild and sacrificed using overdose of absolute halothane inhalation. After gross anatomical studies, penile and prostate samples were collected for histological studies. Gross evaluation revealed that, the penis of C. gambianus was caudo-ventrally oriented. Average length of measured anatomical parts were: anogenital distance (6.31 + 0.89 cm); total penis length (6.66 + 0.3 cm), root (2.0 + 0.1cm),shaft (3.77 + 0.3 cm), and glans penis (0.89 + 0.2 cm). The average length of the os penis was 1.8 + 0.1 cm and its tip was visible through the urethral opening at the glans penis, while its base was attached to the shaft just after the collum penis groove. Microscopically, different parts of the penis showed variable histological composition and organization. Furthemore, the prostate gland consisted of dorsal, lateral and ventral lobes with small, moderate, and few short intraglandular epithelial foldings with acini lined by simple cuboidal to columnar epithelium.