Alternatives Database

Virtual Animal Anatomy

Virtual Canine Anatomy (VCA) is an innovative anatomy program that has received outstanding accolades from members of the American Association of Veterinary Anatomists, students, and instructors both in the United States and internationally. VCA enhances the students’ dissection experience and helps them learn anatomy efficiently (Linton, Schoenfeld-Tacher, Whalen, 2005). In addition, we have begun development of Virtual Equine Anatomy (VEA), Virtual Bovine Anatomy (VBA), and Virtual Feline Anatomy (VFA) programs.

All of our Virtual Animal Anatomy programs allow the luxury of self-paced, individualized learning and provide a focal point around which the instructor and student can exchange ideas and make interpretations of anatomical content. VCA and VEA include images of dogs and horses, respectively, that were donated for use in these educational tools with the goal of reducing unnecessary animal use for anatomy instruction. The strictest humane treatment was used during for all of this work and all animals were humanely euthanized before being dissected for use in the program. All work was pre-approved by the Colorado State University (CSU) Animal Care and Use Committee.

You can view interactive samples of the suite of Virtual Animal Anatomy programs (VCA, VEA, VFA, VBA) by visiting this link. The User Guide is provided with your program purchase, but can also be found at the Veterinary Education Tools (VET) website.

VET is a not-for profit organization within CSU. This work has been financially supported by the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (CVMBS), the Alternatives Research and Development Foundation, and the CVBMS College Research Council USDA Experiment Station research grant.

Programs offered: Flash player 11.2 or higher is needed to run these programs (unsupported devices: tablets and phones without Flash Player including iPhone, iPad, Android devices, and Amazon Kindles).

VCA 3 – Complete canine anatomy tool, $30, Size: 2.66 GB.

VEA, VBA, VFA development bundle, $20 – Overlay images of the equine head, equine pelvic and thoracic limbs, bovine and feline osteology. Size: 1.9 GB.

All payments are final.