Chicken Wing Dissection Lab
Name _________________________________
Date____________________Period_________
Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to examine the wing of a chicken, which has homologous structures to a human arm.
On the diagram of a chicken wing below, circle the names of the bones that we have studied on the human skeleton
that have the same name.
COLOR BONESUpper Arm- Blue
Fore arm- Red
Hand- Yellow
Fingers- Green
Dissection**Safety concern- raw chicken contains bacteria that can cause food poisoning if consumed. Our chicken has been
soaked in bleach to minimize risk of exposure but please use gloves and wash all instruments before and after use. Do
not touch your pen/pencil with chicken soaked hands/gloves.
1. Obtain materials: dissection pan, chicken wing, probe, forceps, scissors and gloves.
2. Before touching the wing, draw it on your lab paper below.
3. Put your gloves on and manipulate your chicken wing to discover how the muscles work. You can cut back the
skin and use your probe/fingers to isolate muscle groups. Do not cut any joints and do not cut the hand at this
point. All joints must stay attached for the muscles to work.
a. There are 2 types of muscles in our arms, flexors and extensors. Flexors cause the arm to fold up and
extensors cause the arm to extend. Try and locate these muscles by gently pulling on the muscles in the
upper and fore arm to see if you can create movement. **Hint- find the tendons and pull there.
b. Write or draw a picture of what you have discovered about both types of muscles after clean-up.
4. After experimenting with the muscles, you may cut the muscles away from your chicken bones and try to isolate
the bones. You may now cut the connective tissue around the joints to separate the bones. These connective
tissues are called ligaments. Also try to notice the connective tissue that attaches the muscles to the bones,
called tendons.
5. Label a plastic bag with your lab information and place all your cleaned bones in the bag. Before sealing the bag,
place some bleach solution in the bag and turn in up front to the green bin.
6. All trash and chicken parts go into the trash. Do not take off your gloves until your station is clean and make sure
to wash and dry all materials.
7. Don’t forget to go back and answer question #3b.
8. Draw skeletal bones from the chicken wing in the shape of a wing (put bones back together to make wing
structure) and label parts: humerus, radius, ulna, metacarples, phalanges, elbow, carpal joint
9. The final part of the lab will be to assemble bones after they have been cleaned and dried.