Four kidneys?

[J@son]

So at the risk of looking like a complete idiot....

I shot a MJ doe this morning. She was average size and appeared healthy .

Carcass looks good. But when I opened her up I found she had four kidneys. Two as expected and two smaller ones floating like apostrophes just above them.

They don't look functional. But they do appear to have the rudimentary internal structure of a normal kidney.

I know that some people are born with only one kidney - and suffer no adverse effects. And I imagine the same could be the case with deer and other mammals. But finding a deer with four kidneys is a first for me.

 

[VSS]

Interesting!

 

[Buchan]

Curiouser and curiouser. It would seem it happens in humans - duplex kidneys. They do look like kidneys and way too big for adrenal glands. be great to confirm that, but you'd need to get them in formalin for preservation prior to sectioning.

 

[deerstalker.308]

Every day is a school day! Thats an interesting find!

 

[Stalker62]

Curiouser and curiouser. It would seem it happens in humans - duplex kidneys.

I once had a patient for a kidney and urinary exam.

Turned out she only had one kidney (it was about 50% bigger than average).

Other than that she was (unaware) asymptomatic and living a normal life.

Nature doing its thing.

 

[John Gryphon]

Mmm my gob was watering thinking of them in a frypan.

 

[sh1kar]

I discovered a few years ago my liver has 3 lobes instead of the normal 2

S

 

[Pine Marten]

Stop asking questions about it and enjoy the bonus breakfast!

 

[Mungo]

Stop asking questions about it and enjoy the bonus breakfast!

The one part of the animal I just can’t stomach. Horrible texture, horrible taste, horrible to think about.

Every few years I see some on the menu of a posh restaurant and decide I have to try it again. And every time it just reminds me how vile it is.

 

[potshotpat]

Just to add. A mate of mine was considered a transplant, not life threatening but a problem for him . He took the hump because he was going bald and he reckoned a kidney on his head would only make it worse.

 

[geoshot]

The one part of the animal I just can’t stomach. Horrible texture, horrible taste, horrible to think about.

Every few years I see some on the menu of a posh restaurant and decide I have to try it again. And every time it just reminds me how vile it is.

Made me chuckle - thanks - reminded me of a conversation I had with a colleague in the pathology lab as we were working in the post mortem cut-up room
He asked me if I would eat kidneys, I responded that they were one of my favourites (not human of course) - he said they were ok but it was impossible to "get the taste of p1ss out of them no matter how they were cooked"

As for the OP
Four kidneys is nothing too out of the ordinary in humans, estimates reckon just under 1% of folk have the condition (duplex kidneys)
Three kidneys (supernumary kidney) is much rarer, only one or two cases are reported per year
I've seen 4 kidneys a couple of times in deer but much less often than I used to see in human cadavers in the pathology lab/mortuary