UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES VISAYAS TACLOBAN COLLEGE

Tacloban City

Biology 14
THE UROGENITAL SYSTEM OF THE TOAD
Objective: To identify the structures of the urogenital system and understand the unction of the system
based on its structures.
Materials: Adult Live Toad, Dissecting Set, Dissecting Pan
Observations
The urogenital system consists of two systems intimately related to each other in structure and
function. These are the excretory and the reproductive systems. The excretory system is for the
removal of nitrogenous waste products from metabolism while the reproductive system produces
gametes and sex hormones.
Locate the following structures after the preliminary dissection procedure. The main excretory organ is
the kidney. This is a pair of flattened elongated organ which is reddish brown in color, and is dorsally
located, i.e. you have to push the digestive and other organs away to locate them. At the margins are
the mesonephric or wolffian ducts which serve as passageways for spermatozoa and urine in males.
Embedded on the ventral surface of each kidney is the very thin, likewise elongated whitish to
yellowish adrenal gland. A thin walled bilobed urinary bladder is attached to the ventral wall of the
cloaca. The cloaca is a common chamber into which the excretory and reproductive ducts empty and
eventually open into the anus.
Make sure to partner with one of your classmates who have a toad of the opposite sex.
In the male toad, identify the following structures: The reproductive organ of the male is the testes.
This is a yellow elongated sausage shaped organ lying on the ventral side of the kidney. Notice there is
finger-shaped, yellow (sometimes orangey) fatty mass. This is the corpora adiposa or fat bodies. These
are supported by a thin mesentery called the mesorchium. The vas efferens are the fine tubules within
the mesorchium that connect the testes to the kidney. These tubules also unite with the mesonephric
duct for the passage of the sperm cells.
For the female toad, the following structures comprise the system. The ovaries are paired, lobulated
structures located on the ventral surfaces of the kidney. They ranged from white to creamy white to
black in color. In the immature stage, they appear to be almost undifferentiated conglomerate mass.
The white and black ova are almost always visible after opening the abdominal cavity. Attached on the
anterior portion of the ovaries are the fat bodies. The oviduct is a pair of white coiled tubes located
next to the ovary. At the terminal end of each uterus is the pear-shaped uterus.
Now that you have finished locating and identifying the 12 structures of the urogenital system, label
your drawings and answer the following questions at the back of your illustrations.
Guide Questions:
1. Give the functions of the following structures if the toad:
a. Fat Bodies.
b. Adrenal Gland
c. Oviduct
d. Uterus
2. How would you determine whether your toad is sexually mature or not?
3. Trace the passage of an ovum or sperm cell to the outside.