The Brookfield Zoo, located just outside of Chicago, uses one of the world’s largest CT scanners to diagnose and treat a wide variety of conditions across the 3,500 animals living at the zoo. The CT scanner was a donation from a local hospital and is capable of imaging animals up to 660 pounds, including fully-grown gorillas, tigers and dolphins.

In addition, Brookfield is the only zoo in the country with a full-time veterinary radiologist, supporting a state-of-the-art 20,000-square-foot animal hospital.

“We do CT scans of hundreds of varying species, ranging in size from a tiny 45-gram violet-backed starling to a 290-kilogram okapi,” said veterinary radiologist Marina Ivančić, in an interview with Radiology. “Some patients as small as 2-gram dart frogs undergo whole-body radiography using our dental unit!”

The CT scanner is used in both preventative and acute care. Some animals—such as dolphins and great apes—allow Ivancic to conduct ultrasound imaging to monitor the health of a fetus or use echocardiography to look for heart disease, but many animals require sedation to undergo imaging. The new scanner is much faster than the elderly machine it replaced, decreasing the length of time an animal needs to be sedated.

Dental care is similarly sped up with the new scanner, according to Ivančić.

“With onsite CT, we can nearly instantaneously obtain critical measurements and describe anatomical variation to a dental specialist to help guide nerve blocks and endodontic procedures,” Ivančić said.

Follow the link below to learn more about the experiences of a radiologist at the zoo: