Too few other items were recovered
from live animals (four fibres and three flexible sheets) to test whether
this pattern occurred in other types of ingested plastic.
One animal
which survived had a 24 mg fragment removed from its cloaca
20 days after arrival, releasing three further fragments (2–7 mg).
Two
weeks later a 34 mg fragment was removed, allowing two flexible
sheet pieces (1–2 mg), a fibre (1 mg) and a small fragment (2 mg) to
be excreted over the next few days.
Six weeks after arrival, two further
large fragmentswere removed (37 mg on day 40 and 42 mg on day 42),
and after day 54 a 5 mg fibre was removed from its cloaca.