Two seniors from the Bioscience High School in Phoenix helped give an alligator a prosthetic tail in an animal-medicine project last month.
The alligator, Mr. Stubbs, was one of 32 alligators rescued by officers in Casa Grande, Ariz. in 2005. Mr. Stubbs was just like the other alligators except for his missing tail.
Omar Benitez, 17, and Samanta Arroyos, 17, helped create the tail from experiences they received at internships. The Phoenix Herpetological Society, which houses the alligator, said this is the first prosthetic body part made for a reptile.
“I was already doing a lab on prosthetic legs at the Tempe campus and then some of my friends were involved in the Wild Ecology Pathway and they were already at the Phoenix Herpetological Society,” Benitez said.
“There was an alligator that needed the prosthetic tail, and they were like, ‘Hey, you’re doing prosthetics, maybe you should get involved?’” he said.
Arroyos and Benitez worked with the CORE Institute, Midwestern University and the Phoenix Herpetological Society to help develop the tail.
“I was in the ecology side of it,” Arroyos said. “I was most of the research and final decision to how long, how big or heavy the tail should be.”
Arroyos was able to contribute to the project through the use of different alligator bodies, measurements, research and assistance of her mentor, Justin Georgi, an assistant professor of anatomy at Midwestern University.
“We would study how he would move without the tail and we would study how movement was in a normal alligator with a tail,” Arroyos said. “We figured out there was a lot of difference in the way his spine was aligned and how much pressure was in his ribcage and used that information.”
If Mr. Stubbs had been left in the wild without a tail, he most likely would not have survived, said Wendy Cassidy, marketing director at Phoenix Herpetological Society.
Through research and development, the artificial tail was produced and placed onto Mr. Stubbs in early March. Benitez said it had to be flexible, lightweight and buoyant like a real tail.
“You come to school and you learn stuff, but it’s really the best feeling when you actually get to use it,” Benitez said. “I love being able to work on a project this important. It was really fun and amazing to be part of.”
“I am always just blown away by our students,” Bioscience Principal DeeDee Falls said. “They take such initiative, they have so many talents and they take these risks in terms of putting themselves out there. I am really proud of them.”
Contact the reporter at foliva@asu.edu
