Developmental stages in the rabbit embryo: guidelines to choose an appropriate experimental model.

Researchers involved in the field of congenital malformations are often forced to work on an animal model. Both accurate description of its normal development and comparative staging with human development will be mandatory. To complete the lacking medical literature, we herein provide such data for the rabbit model. Sampled rabbit embryos were staged using the Carnegie criteria, in order first to determine if they were consistent with the rabbit developmental pattern, and second to compare this pattern with the human one. Our results show a suitable comparison of rabbits and humans in early developmental stages, except for the neural growth.