Morphological tools to evaluate the digestory apparatus in rocky cavy (Kerodon rupestris)

Abstract

This research describes for the first time the complete morphology of the digestive apparatus of rock cavies. Dissection, light microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy were performed. The oral cavity has: the hard palate without palatine wrinkles and the soft palate; the tongue composed by striated musculature, with presence of vallate, foliated, and fungiform papillae with taste buds and filiform papillae with mechanical function; and, 20 teeth of the hypsodonts type. Esophagus, stomach, small intestine (duodenum, jejunum, and ileum), and the large intestine (cecum, colon, and rectum) are found. The anus is present at the end of the alimentary channel. Organs of digestive tube are composed by four tunics: mucosa, submucosa, muscular, and serosa. The duodenum, jejunum and ileum have villi. Jejunum, ileum and cecum present Lieberkühn crypts. The cecum has mucous glands. Colon and rectum are folded and have goblet cells. Anus presents sebaceous glands. As associated glands it is found the liver with six lobes and gallbladder; a lobulated pancreas; and a pair of each major salivary gland (parotid, mandibular, and sublingual). Parotid glands have serous acini and mandibular and sublingual glands have mucous acini. Pancreas has adenomers. The liver has hepatocytes and portal vein, hepatic artery, and bile duct (portal triad), separated by sinusoids. It is concluded that the digestive apparatus of the rock cavy has variations in the dentition, lingual papillae, and acini of the salivary glands when compared to other rodents. Other variations refer to the well‐developed cecum characteristic of herbivorous behavior.

Structural and ultrastructural characterization of the palatine epithelium of the Guinea pig: A new record of telocytes in the oral cavity

“…The lamina propria in the hard palate was composed of orange tone collagen, and CTCs projections indented epithelial layers as described by Sa et al, 2016 in guinea pig, this characteristic is also present in dog, pig, rat, rabbit, sheep, buffalo (Sa et al, 2016), domestic goat (Mahdy et al, 2018) and rocky cavy (Aro et al, 2019). The CTCs were thin filaments, with higher density in the rostral region and lower in the middle, near the transition region was characterized a laminar aspect, differently from the morphology present in the white‐eared opossum (Martinez et al, 1997), and nine‐banded armadillo (Martinez, Martinez, & Watanabe, 1998).…”

“…The palate was short and had a triangular shape, without palatine ridges, and similar to rock cavy (Aro et al, 2019), it diverges from rodents with palatine ridges as Wistar rat (Cleaton‐Jones & Fleisch, 1973; Hayward, Hamilton, & Hackmann, 1973), mouse (Tachibana, Fujiwara, Sato, & Nawa, 1990), African giant pouched rat (Mustapha et al, 2015) and African squirrels species (Eisentraut, 1975).…”

“…The oral cavity of mammals is composed of structures of a wide morphological variety, reflecting taxonomy, habitats, and diet. The palate is anatomically divided into the hard and soft palate, with distinct features (Aro et al, 2019).…”

“…In the hard palate, the epithelium is characterized with palatine ridges in mammal orders as Carnivore (Ari & Uslu, 2019), Artiodactyl (Mahdy, Abdalla, & Mohamed, 2018), Primate (Lima, Fioretto, Imbeloni, & Branco, 2012), and Rodent (Mustapha, Ayoade, Ogunbunmi, & Olude, 2015), although in the last one, this feature may be absent (Aro et al, 2019).…”

Tracking the developmental events in the duodenum of the quail embryo: Using light and electron microscope

“…Duodenum is one of the fore gut derivatives (Romanoff, 1960), and it is the spot where the food digestion mostly takes place as proventriculus is the site where digestion begins (Wilkinson et al, 2018). Histologically, the wall of duodenum is formed of four tunics: mucosa, submucosa, muscularis and serosa (de Aro & Dos Santos, 2019; Goodarzi et al, 2021). The mucosal layer of duodenum projects into the lumen forming villi, that are lined with a simple columnar epithelium interspersed with goblet cells in Japanese quail (Wilkinson et al, 2018) and in broiler (Nasrin et al, 2012) Brunner's glands and Paneth cells are absent in duodenum (Nasrin et al, 2012).…”