Specialised Digestive Systems Flashcards
what are the 3 specialised digestive systems?
handout fermenters
birds
ruminants
what are handout fermenters?
herbivores - they eat a lot of high fibre plant material which is difficult to digest
how do hindgut fermenters digest their food?
digest most of it in the cecum and at the start of the large intestine where there are large numbers of microbes to ferment the food
why is birds digestive adapted?
they have no teeth so have to use their tongue to push food back to oesophagus.
what are the components of the birds digestive system?
crop, proventriculus, ventriculus, ceca & cloaca
what are the components of a ruminants digestive system?
rumen, reticulum, omasum, abomasum
what process occurs in the rumen?
fermentation
what does retro peristalsis do?
allows for feed to be brought back up for it to be mechanically broken down by chewing and then being swallowed for further digestion
what happens in the rumen?
its an anaerobic environment where microbes secrete enzymes such as cellulase.
saliva makes it a suitable environment for micro-flora to survive
forms undigested food into cud (reticulum helps)
what happens in the reticulum?
filters food into the rumen, allowing only sufficiently broken down parts into the omasum
what happens in the omasum
some water & salts absorbed then remaining matter taken to abomasum
what happens in the abomasum
the true stomach - digestive enzymes & acid are added
what happens in the crop?
food comes here from the oesophagus - its the temporary storage area before proventriculus
what happens in the proventriculus
adds digestive enzymes & hydrochloric acid and then pushed to ventriculus
what happens in the ventriculus
mechanical Digestion here
