Happy Lunar New Year and welcome to the Year of the Rooster! Here is a chicken embryo nestled into a pillow of yolk and surrounded by a network of blood vessels. The eye is clearly visible as a dark circle; the developing fore- and hindlimb and tail are also visible as projections from the pink body. At this stage, the yolk membrane is extremely fragile and will rupture when the egg is cracked. However, this one landed perfectly intact into a petri dish. We use a lot of chicken embryos in our line of research, so I would like to take this moment to deeply thank them for their contribution to our science and teaching. For me, the beauty of these embryos are also a potent source of wonder. Image credit: Curious Sengi.
Curious Sengi 