Study of blood cell morphology of nesting green turtle (Chelonia mydas) in Chagar Hutang, Redang Island, Malaysia

Abstract

Study was conducted between 23 rd May till 31 st July 2010 on nesting green sea turtles (Che/onia mydas) on Chagar Hutang, Redang Island, Malaysia. Blood samples were obtained from nine individuals. Six of them are normal, and the rest are categorized as stressed C. mydas. A stress C. mydas suffers from injuries such as amputation of flippers, tumors and present of parasite such as barnacle. These stress physical condition are caused by natural disease and human act. Samples were withdrawn from dorsal cervical sinus by using 18 Gauge needle into ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) tube. In erythrocytes morphological studies, the thin blood smears were stain with Giemsa stain. However, Wright's stain was used for leukocytes morphological studies. Both were observed under 1 OOOx magnification. The erythrocyte observed is a nucleated red blood cell with a rounded and elongated cytoplasm presence. This study was concentrated on the differences size of erythrocytes of normal and stressed C. mydas. Erythrocytes size for normal C. mydas is 211.34 ± 21.05 µm and for its nucleus is 26.42 ± 3.00 µm 2 2 • As for erythrocytes size of stressed C. mydas is 151.69 ± 18.75 µm 2 and the nucleus is 18.40 ± 2.08 µm 2 •