Morphological characterization of Horsfield’s treeshrew Tupaia javanica lingual papillae: Light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy studies

Abstract

The Horsfield's treeshrew (Tupaia javanica) is one of the shrews found on the island of Java that mainly feeds on fruits and occasionally insects. This shrew has an important role in the ecosystem as it spreads plant seeds and controls insects. To this day, there is no available knowledge about the structure of Horsfield's treeshrew's tongue. Therefore, the aim of this study was to provide data on the tongue structure of the Horsfield's treeshrew through two different methods. We investigated the tongue morphology and lingual papillae distribution of Tupaia javanica using 1) scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for microscopic structure and 2) histology for microscopic organization. Our macroscopic results revealed that the tongue of Tupaia javanica can be divided into three parts: apex, corpus and radix. The dorsal surface of the medial corpus is the median groove extending to the radix. Observation using SEM and light microscopy (LM) showed that the apex of the tongue bears three types of papillae: scale‐like filiform, small filiform and fungiform. These are rosette filiform papillae, cornflower filiform papillae, conical papillae and fungiform papillae in the corpus. Meanwhile, the radix contains small filiform papillae, scale‐like filiform papillae, vallate papillae, conical papillae and fungiform papillae. On the lateral posterior radix, Weber's gland reacts positively to PAS reaction. Taking together, our research shows that there are variations in the papillae on the tongue surface of Horsfield's treeshrew, and the variations of these papillae are very dependent on the pattern, type of food and the function of the tongue.

Tongue microarchitecture and functional characterization of the lingual papillae in the desert hedgehog (Paraechinus aethiopicus)

“…Both microscopic and ultrastructural analyses revealed that the lingual papillae could be differentiated according to their function. The mechanical and the gustatory represent the main forms and similar arrangement was recognized in several mammalian species such as the European hedgehog (Akbari et al, 2018), Horsfield's tree shrew (Gartiwa et al, 2021), the gray mongoose (Mahmood et al, 2022), the Egyptian long‐eared hedgehog and the Nile grass rat (Massoud & Abumandour, 2019), Wistar rat (Huțanu et al, 2022), common opossum (Okada & Schraufnagel, 2005), the Egyptian fruit bat and the Egyptian tomb bat (El‐Mansi et al, 2019), lowland tapir (Goździewska‐Harłajczuk et al, 2020), African pygmy hedgehog (Cizek et al, 2022), rakali and the greater stick‐nest rat (Humphries et al, 2023). Fork filiform papillae carrying two or three spines were described previously in other hedgehogs, including the long‐eared hedgehog (Massoud & Abumandour, 2019) and Brandt's hedgehog (Goodarzi & Azarhoosh, 2016).…”

The Structure of the Lingual Papillary of the Asian Palm Civet’s ( Paradoxurus hermaphorditus ): The Analysis of Feeding Habit Adaption using Gross-Morphometric, Scanning Electron Microscope, Light Microscope (Histochemistry Staining)

“…Many studies on the dorsal surface of animal tongues have been carried out such as the fruit bat Rousettus ampelxicaudatus (Gunawan et al, 2019), the insect bat Pipistrellus javanicus (Saragih et al, 2020), the flying squirrel Hylopetes platyurus (Wihadmadyatami et al, 2020), the flying squirrel Tupaia javanica (Gartiwa et al, 2021), sugar glider Petaurus breviceps , and javan mongoose Herpestes Javanicus (Kusuma et al, 2022). These studies provide evidence of variation in papillary morphology and distribution.…”