{"id":4989,"date":"2009-02-23T10:46:13","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T09:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/the-curious-case-of-the-blue-rabbit\/"},"modified":"2022-03-24T19:06:38","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T18:06:38","slug":"the-curious-case-of-the-blue-rabbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/the-curious-case-of-the-blue-rabbit\/","title":{"rendered":"The Curious Case of the Blue Rabbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A rabbit carcass was submitted, which had been returned to the slaughterhouse, because of the presence of bluish spots in muscles which seemed to grow as time passed, starting to affect the fat and kidneys.<\/p>\n<p>When sectioning the muscle the pigmentation delved into the muscular tissue. No anomalies were detcted upon antemortem examination.<\/p>\n<p>Histopathological examination revealed the presence of bacteria  (gram positive and gram negative) accumulated in the carcass surface but not penetrating the muscular fibres. No inflammatory reaction was observed, confirming that it was a  postmortem change.<\/p>\n<p>In an initial microbiological culture <em>Aeromonas hydrophila \/ caviae<\/em> and <em>Staphylococcus sciuri<\/em>  were isolated. A new microbiological analysis finally allowed the isolation of <strong><em>Pseudomonas fluorescens<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The book &#8220;Food Microbiology&#8221; WC Frazier, DC Westhoff, Acribia Ed (1993), describes such colors on the surface of the meat as produced by bacterial growth (such as that of <em>P.fluorescens<\/em>) which produce a yellow pigment that, upon combineation with lipid peroxidation of meat and fat can generate a bluish pigment, known as &#8220;stamp ink&#8221;. We are thus faced with a case of bacterial contamination of the carcass, most likely accompanied by an disruption of the refrigeration continuum.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_610\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09-684x600.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-610\" class=\"size-large wp-image-6153\" title=\"Blue pigment in the hind limb muscles of rabbit carcasses.\" src=\"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09-684x600.jpg\" alt=\"Blue pigment in the hind limb muscles of rabbit carcasses.\" width=\"620\" height=\"543\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09-684x600.jpg 684w, https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09-300x263.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09-768x674.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09-1536x1347.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09-2048x1796.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-610\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue pigment in the hind limb muscles of rabbit carcasses.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_611\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09_2-610x600.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-611\" class=\"size-large wp-image-6155\" title=\"The same casrcass a few days later. Note how the pigment has extended towards the trunk..\" src=\"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09_2-610x600.jpg\" alt=\"The same casrcass a few days later. Note how the pigment has extended towards the trunk..\" width=\"610\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09_2-610x600.jpg 610w, https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09_2-300x294.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09_2-90x90.jpg 90w, https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/SESC_0011-09_2.jpg 1377w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-611\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The same casrcass a few days later. Note how the pigment has extended towards the trunk.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_613\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/92.09-Pfluorescens-Cetrimide4-800x531.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-613\" class=\"size-large wp-image-6159\" title=\"Cetrimide agar with Pseudomonas fluorescens growth, note the synthesis of a yellowish flouorescent pigment. Image provided by the Servicio de Bacteriolog\u00eda y Micolog\u00eda del Departamento de Sanidad y Anatom\u00eda Animales de la UAB.\" src=\"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/92.09-Pfluorescens-Cetrimide4-800x531.jpg\" alt=\"Cetrimide agar with Pseudomonas fluorescens growth, note the synthesis of a yellowish flouorescent pigment. Image provided by the Servicio de Bacteriolog\u00eda y Micolog\u00eda del Departamento de Sanidad y Anatom\u00eda Animales de la UAB.\" width=\"620\" height=\"411\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/92.09-Pfluorescens-Cetrimide4-800x531.jpg 800w, https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/92.09-Pfluorescens-Cetrimide4-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sesc.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/92.09-Pfluorescens-Cetrimide4.jpg 1504w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-613\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cetrimide agar with Pseudomonas fluorescens growth, note the synthesis of a yellowish flouorescent pigment. Image provided by the Servicio de Bacteriolog\u00eda y Micolog\u00eda del Departamento de Sanidad y Anatom\u00eda Animales de la UAB.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A rabbit carcass was submitted, which had been returned to the slaughterhouse, because of the presence of bluish spots in muscles which seemed to grow as time passed, starting to affect the fat and kidneys. When sectioning the muscle the pigmentation delved into the muscular tissue. No anomalies were detcted upon antemortem examination. Histopathological examination [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[401,408],"class_list":["post-4989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rabbit-2","tag-muscle-en","tag-subcutaneous-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sesc.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}