(Solved) Densities of bodyfat/muscle/and other matter?

Nanako

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8 years ago Edited: 8 years ago, Nanako

Densities of bodyfat/muscle/and other matter?

Hi all. I'm currently writing some extravagantly overcomplicated code for a game about breeding dogs. One of the things i'd like to do is, given the animal's volume (this is known to extreme precision), as well as it's bodyfat percentage, is it possible to calculate a reasonable estimate of its mass?

I'd also like to have variable muscle mass for the animals, which brings me to a second question. Is there an appreciable difference in the density of muscle tissue, and the (average) density of other non-muscle tissue (organs, bones, skin, blood)

What are the anatomical variables i'd need to track to be able to have a moderately accurate estimate of an animal's mass? Are there known/tested density values for the three aforementioned matter types? (fat, muscle, and the other stuff)

Post Merge: 8 years ago

Also this isn't homework help, i seem to have posted in the wrong forum. can someone move it?

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MouthoftheBeast

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8 years ago

This verified answer contains over 160 words.

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pepperspray, bio_man

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Nanako Author

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8 years ago

Quote from: MouthoftheBeast (8 years ago)

Because it's built for strength and power, muscle will always be denser (and thus heavier) than fat, and denser than indeed other tissues as well.The main tissues we can talk about are skin (or dermis), muscle, and fat. These things make up all other things within the body, so it is possible to simply break down the densities of these tissues instead of getting too deep. The exact density for these values depends on the type, but generally...

Skin - 1.05 g/cm^3

Fat - .91 g/cm^3

Muscle - 1.06 g/cm^3

Some other structures in the body and their density:

Blood - 1.04 g/cm^3

Bone - 1.75 g/cm^3

An average human is ~40% skeletal muscle by mass, 7% blood, 12% bone, and 20% optimum body fat

I'm not sure what any of these values are for dogs, but I would expect they would be rather similar to ours. I hope this helps!

Thank you for this information !

I always knew muscle was heavier, but honestly i expected it to be a much bigger difference than this
ill see what i can do with this info x

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Nanako Author

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8 years ago

it occurs to me that average volume percentages for fat/muscle/other would also he helpful. might you have those?

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MouthoftheBeast

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8 years ago

Divide the percentages by the corrosponding volumes to get the volume by mass

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