Gender Comparison on Biochemical Values of Commercial Captive Amazon Freshwater Turtle (Podocnemis expansa)

In attempt to support conservation projects and to evaluate captive populations under disease risk, this study intends to report the gender influence on biochemical values from P. expansa. Forty blood samples (19 males and 21 females) of adult P. expansa were collected from a commercial farm in Rio Branco, Acre (Brazil). The plasma samples were subjected to analysis of urea, creatinine, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and total protein levels. The biochemical results were submitted to descriptive statistics to determinate the mean, standard deviation and range of variation (MIN, MAX). The biochemical levels presented in this study are essential to create a guideline on normal values. As reported previously there was no difference among female and male biochemical values. It is important to emphasize that our study used a higher number of animals, with two groups comprising similar number of females and males. […]