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Marine Turtle Newsletter 27:4-5, © 1984

Biochemical Constituents of Serum of Young Female Hatchlings of
Olive Ridley Lepidochelys Olivacea

P. Mohanty-Hejmadi¹, M.T. Dimond² and J. Kanungo^1
1Department of Zoology, Utkal University, Vani Vihar, Bhubaneswar-75l004, India
²Trinity College, Washington D.C. 20017, U.S.A.

Although some data concerning biochemical and physiological changes in reptiles exist (Bennet and Dawson, 1976; Dessauer, 1970) such types of data are not available for hatchlings of sea turtles in general. Therefore, the serum constituents of the hatchlings of the Olive Ridley L. olivacea were determined. Eggs of L. olivacea were collected from Gaheermatha area of Orissa during the last week of February. They were incubated at 31-32ºC and all the resulting hatchlings were females. Their serum constituents were determined by using a visible-range spectrophotometer "SICOSPEC-100". In this study 8 day old and 13 day old hatchlings were used. There was no difference between the data obtained from these two groups. Blood was collected by heart puncture in heparinised hematocrit tubes. After determining hematocrit, serum was extracted and protein (Lowry et al., 1951), inorganic phosphorus (Fiske and Subba Row, 1925) Phospholipid phosphorus (Connerty et al., 1951) and total cholesterol (Sackett, 1925) were estimated (Table 1).

In reptiles, proteins make up about 5% of the blood plasma (Dessauer, 1970). Chelonia plasma contains an average of 4.4 gm/100 ml protein with a range of 2.9 gm/l00 ml to 6.1 gm/100 ml (Dessauer, 1970). Serum protein of the hatchlings of L. olivacea approaches the value in adult chelonians (Table 1).

Table 1. Serum Constituents of the female hatchlings of L. olivacea.

Adults of L. olivacea contain 3.5 mM inorganic phosphorous (34.3 mg %) in 1000 ml of serum (Dessauer, 1970). The hatchlings have 20.384 mg % inorganic phosphorus in their serum (Table 1). Total cholesterol averages from 69 mg % to 480% in the serum of different species of emydine turtles (Chaikoff and Enteman, 1946; Jackson and Legendre, 1967; Stenroos and Bowman, 1968). In the hatchlings the value is well within the average however, it is close to the higher level. Frair (1977) has reported that the average hematocrit value in adult L. olivacea is 31% with a range of 23% to 38%. In the hatchlings, the average was within but towards the lower level of the range.

This study shows that the values of the serum constituents in the hatchling in general are well within the range of those reported for the adult sometimes occupying the higher and at other times occupying the lower limit of the range. We are grateful to Government of Orissa and Wild Life Warden Sri U.N. Sarangi for the permit and collection of eggs.

Bennet, A.F., and W.R. Dawson. 1976. Metabolism, pp. 127-223 In C. Gans (ed.) Biology of the Reptilia. Vol. 5. Academic Press, London & N.Y.

Connerty, H.V., A.R. Brigs and E.H. Eaton Jr. 1961. Clin Chem 7, (37):589 In H. Varley (ed.) Practical Clinical Biochemistry, Indian Edition (1969).

Dessauer, H.C. 1970. Blood Chemistry of reptiles: Physiological and evolutionary aspects. pp. 1-72 In C. Gans (ed.) Biology of the Reptilia. Vol. 3. Academic Press, London & N.Y.

Fiske, C.H. and Y. Subba Row. 1925. J. Biol. Chem 73: 627. In H. Varley (ed.) Practical Clinical Biochemistry, Indian Edition. (1969).

Frair, W. 1977. Turtle Red Blood cell packed volumes, sizes and numbers. Herpetologica. 33:167-190.

Jackson, C.G. Jr., and R.C. Legendre. 1967. Blood serum cholesterol levels in turtles. Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 20:311-312.

Lowry, O.H., N.J. Rostbrough, A.L. Farr and R.J. Randal. 1951. Protein Measurement with the Folin-Phenol reagent. J. Biol. Chem 193:265-275.

Sackett, G.E. 1925. J. Biol. Chem 64:203. In H. Varley (ed.) Practical Clinical Biochemistry, Indian edition. (1969).

Stenroos, O.O. and W.M. Bowman. 1968. Turtle Blood I. Concentrations of various constituents. Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 25:219-222.