Anatomic description of the collateral branches from the aortic arch of lesser anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla)

Aiming to enrich the anatomical study and knowledge and foster new researches with wild animals, three runned over lesser anteaters (Tamandua tetradactyla) were studied, being two males and one female, from Paragominas, Para, Brazil, under the licenses SEMA-PA 455/2009 and 522/2009, which were donated to Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia (UFRA) after death due to natural causes. The arterial system was filled with red latex and the animals were fixed and dissected for observation of the arrangement of the collateral branches of the aortic arch. First, the brachiocephalic trunk was identified, from which originated the right subclavian artery and the bicarotid trunk, which bifurcated into right and left common carotid artery. The second branch originated in the aortic arch was the left subclavian artery, which branched into the vertebral artery, internal thoracic artery, costocervical trunk, and superficial cervical artery. These same branches were also present in the right subclavian artery, which, in the axillary level, was named the axillary artery. In general, it was observed that the three lesser anteaters studied presented a different vascular pattern from others mammals already studied, including species from the Xenarthra superorder, suggesting that in this species there might exist a particular pattern of distribution of the main branches from the aortic arch