Reptiles urine

Olfactory enrichment should provide stimulation and choice whilst minimizing health risks. However, relatively few studies have reported their health and safety considerations. The most commonly used forms of olfactory stimuli are faeces and urine, and yet associated risks, for example when items are consumed during provision (Schaap 2002), are hardly mentioned in the literature. Pathogen and parasite testing will decrease risk of disease transmission, and pathogens and scents may be removed by exposing items to extremes of temperature Burr (1997) microwaved fetid hair before providing it to reptiles. 

Terrestrial reptiles also avoid considerable evaporation by being quiescent in burrows much of the time. Also, their skin is more impermeable than that of amphibians, although water is still lost in expired air. Hydrated lizards have low urine filtration rate (urine always hypotonic), and may... 

Transferrins exist in blood sera, milks and avian egg whites in the relatively high concentrations of 0.1% to 16% of the solids. The highest concentrations have been found in avian egg whites (28) and, in general, the concentrations in avian egg whites are higher than in the other fluids. In fact, the lowest concentration reported in avian egg whites is approximately equal to the concentrations usually found in vertebrate blood sera, namely 2—3% of the solids. Milk, however, has much lower concentrations, and values as low as 0.1% (20 mg isolated from 1 liter of milk) have been indicated (62). Small amounts of transferrins also have been reported in other fluids, such as cerebrospinal fluid (29, 105), seminal fluid (87) and urine (15). Interpretations of the significance of these observations, however, should await further and more detailed studies because the presence of blood serum proteins in small quantities in other body fluids may be adventitious. Transferrin was not found in chemically detectible amounts in the egg white of the desert tortoise (37). But since no other reports apparently have been made on eggs of other reptiles or fish, the presence or absence of transferrins in these materials must be considered as yet uninvestigated. 

Uric acid is associated with urea, creatine and creatinine in urine. In the urine of mammals it occurs in small amounts, the chief nitrogen compound being urea. In birds and reptiles, however, uric acid predominates and is the precursor of the related guanine in guano. 

OoooBBKNcx.—Urea does not occur in the vegetable world. It exists pxincipally in the urine of the mammalia also in smaller quantity in the excrements of birds, fishes, and some reptiles in the mammalian blood, chyle, lymph, liver, spleen, lungs, brain, vitreous and ueous humors, saliva, perspiration, bile, milk, amniotic and allaiitoio flui muscular tissue, and m serous fluids (see below). 

Uric Acid. 7,9-Dihydro-1 H-purine-2,h,S< M1)-trl-one 8-hydroxyxanthine purine-2,6,8-triol purine-2,6,8-(1H, 3//, (>ll) -trior 2,6,8-trioxypurine. C5HiN4Oi mol wt 168.11. C 35.72%, H 2.40%, N 33.33%, O 28.55%. Discovered by Scheele and independently hy Bergman in 1776. It forms the chief end-product of the nitrogenous metabolism of birds and of scaly reptiles and is found in their excrement present in the urine of all carnivorous animals. Prepn from urea Bills et al. J. Org. Chem. 27, 4633 (1962). Role in biological processes Bishop, Talbott, Pharmacol Revs. 5, 231 (1953). 

Uric Acid, C5H4O3N4, occurs in small quantity in normal urine a man excretes daily about 0.7 grams of the acid. In gout, uric acid is deposited in the joints and under the skin as a difficultly soluble acid salt. It also occurs in the form of urinary calculi in the bladder. The ammonium salt of uric acid is the chief constituent of the excrement of birds and reptiles. The acid is most conveniently prepared from guano or the excrement of snakes. 

The ph3 ological rdle of the amidases, and how these enzymes intervene in the elaboration of materials by whose aid urea and uric acid, the two principal nitrogenous constituents of the urine, can be formed, has already been discussed. Ammonium salts represent, in fact, one of the principal sources of urea for, converted to anunonium carbonate and carbamate, they are rapidly dehydrated by the cells of the kidneys to form urea. It would even appear that uric acid, at least with animals such as birds and reptiles that produce large quantities of this substance, also has its origin in the liver, the hepatic organ of birds being capable of transforming ammonia salts, accompanied or not accompanied by ternary substances, into uric add and not... 

Birds and reptiles are oviparous, and the cleidoic eggs that they produce contain all the nutrient required until hatching. This nutrient, which is mainly protein and lipoprotein, is synthesised in the liver and oviduct prior to oviposition. Lipoproteins are discussed in Section 4.5, and the control of egg protein synthesis in Section 10.3. Birds excrete a semi-solid urine, and this requires a lower water intake than is possible in ureotelic animals. The metabolic adaption that allows this to occur is the excretion of nitrogen principally in the form of uric acid. Uric acid is sparingly soluble in water and is present in avian ureters largely as a colloidal suspension. This is discussed in Section 5.4. 

Dogs, rats, and rabbits metabolize fluoroacetate compounds to nontoxic metabolites, and excrete fluoroacetate and fluorocitrate compounds peak rate of excretion occurs during the first day after dosing and drops shortly thereafter. Rats dosed with radiolabeled 1080 at 5.0 mg/kg BW had 7 different radioactive compounds in their urine. Monofluoroacetate comprised oifly 13% of the urinary radioactive material, fluorocitrate oifly 11%, and an unidentified toxic metabolite 3% 2 nontoxic metabolites accounted for almost 73% of the urinary radioactivity. Animal muscle usually contained nondetectable residues of any 1080 component within 1-5 days of treatment. Defluorination occurred in the liver by way of an enzymic glutathione-dependent mechanism which in the brush-tailed opossum resulted in the formation of 5 -carboxymethylcysteine and free fluoride ion. A rapid rate of defluorination together with a low reliance on aerobic respiration favored detoxification of fluoroacetate rather than its conversion into fluorocitrate, and may account for the resistance of reptiles to 1080 when compared to mammals. 

Uric acid, 2,6,S-trihydroxypmnu an excretory product of purine metabolism in most animals. In some animals, known as uricotelic organisms (birds, reptiles, many insects), it is the main nitrogenous excretory product. U.a. (Af, 168.1, m.p. 400°C) was discovered in urine in 1776 by Scheele, and it can be isolated in quantity from bird excrements (guano) its salts are called urates Humans and the great apes usually excrete U. a. unchanged. In the adult human, 1-3 % of urinary nitrogen is represented by U.a. 

Uric acid (2,6,8-trioxypurine) was discovered in 1776 in human urine and bladder stones by Scheele (S) and by Beigmann, and by 1805 it had been found in the excreta of a wide variety of animals. Further studies during the first half of the nineteenth century showed that uric acid was the chief end product of nitrogen metabolism in birds and some reptiles, and this work implied that reactions for its biosynthesis de novo existed. Despite great interest in uric acid during this period, its structure was not definitively established until 1882, when it was syntherized by Fischer its elementary formula had been determined by Liebig in 1834, however, and Medicus had proposed the correct structure in 1875. 

Uric acid is present in the urine of all carnivores and is the main product of nitrogen metabolism in the excrement ofbirds and reptiles. The disease gout results from deposition of sodium urate (the salt of uric acid) in joints and tendons. Caffeine, present in coffee, tea, and cola beverages, and theobromine (in cocoa) are also purines. 

Uric acid (2,6,8-hydroxypurine) is formed in small amounts in man, and traces are found in blood, urine, and feces. In birds and reptiles uric acid constitutes the normal metabolic end product of nitrogen and is found in large amounts in guano. 

The main end product of purine—adenine, guanine and xanthine—metabolism in birds, reptiles, and man, which is excreted in the urine. Uric acid is formed from purines consumed in the diet, and from body purines derived from the breakdown of nucleic acids. Mammals other than man further metabolize uric acid to allantoin, which is excreted in the urine. However, man lacks the enzyme, urate oxidase, necessary for this conversion. Therefore, about 0.5 to 1.0 g of uric acid is lost in the urine each day. A high level of uric acid in the blood is associated with the development of gout. In addition, uric acid may form kidney stones, especially in individuals suffering from gout. 

Transformation and Degradation of Purine in Animals.—Animals other than birds and reptiles excrete their waste protein nitrogen in the urine, and are said to be ureotelic. In ureotelic animals, purine metabolism proceeds along independent lines. The purines of the diet, chiefly nucleotides and nucleosides liberated from nucleo-proteins, are resolved into their constituent amino purines by the enzymes of the alimentary tract and mucosa. The amino purines are absorbed into the portal s3rstem, and if not utilised, are de-aminated by the appropriate enzjones, adenase and guanase, found in the liver. 

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