Morphological analysis of the digestive tract of Hypophthalmus marginatus (Valenciennes, 1840)

Abstract

Morphological studies provide data to understand the structural organization of the digestive system, being the key to understanding fish nutrition (Wilson & Castro, 2010). The digestive tract is responsible for digestion and absorption of the food, being divided into the oropharyngeal cavity, oesophagus, stomach and intestine (Kalhoro et al., 2019;Matheus et al., 2021;Vidal et al., 2019). Each organ has different characteristics according to its function, with the oropharyngeal cavity responsible for capturing the food, the oesophagus acting to transport the food, the stomach for digestion, and the intestine for digestion and absorption (Baldisserotto, 2009;Moraes & Almeida, 2014). However, fish have several morphological and physiological adaptations for different eating habits (Cao & Wang, 2009;