This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Ziggy the guinea pig was not doing well. He wasn't eating, and we noticed a tinge of blood in his urine. After having him for 3.5 years, it was time to take the little guy to the vet. We packed him into a lunch-box-sized carrier and brought him to the closest practice that would see a guinea pig. The vet guessed that he had a small bladder stone, but wanted to take an X-ray to be sure. She took him into another room, and we could hear his guinea pig squeals of alarm and displeasure through the wall. He does not like X-rays, this little guy. He did indeed have a kidney stone, which required guinea surgery, which he recovered well from. We still have this old man, who turns 5 this very month. He's a very old guinea man.
The silver lining of his brush with guinea death a year and a half ago was getting a copy of his guinea X-ray. I think it's beautiful and haunting. But then, I have a general fascination with X-rays, and I request copies of my own too. After I recently shared Ziggy's X-ray on Twitter, I asked for submissions from other pet owners who have copies of their animal X-rays as well. I wound up with a nice collection to add to the guinea X-ray: a dog, a cat, and a ferret. Below are their X-rays followed by a picture of the pets from the outside.
A very special thank you to Matt Shipman, Julia Ellis, Meg Helmes, Chis Zhu, and Glendon Mellow for helping with this post!
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Ziggy
Juju
Andy
Momo