Digestive System
The digestive system is a tube running
from mouth to anus.
Its chief goal is to break down huge macromolecules
(proteins, fats and starch) which cannot be absorbed
intact, into smaller molecules (amino acids, fatty
acids and glucose) that can be absorbed across the
wall of the tube, and into the circulatory system for
dissemination throughout the body.
Regions of the digestive system can be divided
into two main parts:
Alimentary tract is composed of the
mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, small and
large intestines, rectum and anus.
Accessory organs: salivary
glands, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas.
Invertebrate
Digestive Systems
Animals have evolved different types of digestive systems break down the different types
of food they consume.
Invertebrates can be classified as those that use intracellular digestion and those with
extracellular digestion.
1) Intracellular Digestion – it takes place in a gastrovascular cavity with only one
opening.
• Most animals with soft bodies use this type of digestion, including Platyhelminthes
(flatworms), Ctenophora (comb jellies), and Cnidaria (coral, jelly fish, and sea
anemones).
• The gastrovascular cavities of these organisms contain one open which serves as both a
“mouth” and an “anus”.
2) Invertebrates with Extracellular Digestion like grasshoppers have alimentary canals
with specialized compartments for digestion.
• The alimentary canal is a more advanced digestive system than a gastro vascular cavity
and carries out extracellular digestion.
• Most other invertebrates like segmented worms (earthworms), arthropods
(grasshoppers), and arachnids (spiders) have alimentary canals.
• The alimentary canal is compartmentalized for different digestive functions and
consists of one tube with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other.
• Once the food is ingested through the mouth, it passes through the esophagus and
is stored in an organ called the crop, then it passes into the gizzard where it is
churned and digested.
• From the gizzard, the food passes through the intestine and nutrients are absorbed.
Because the food has been broken down exterior to the cells.
• The material that the organism cannot digest is eliminated as feces, called
castings, through the anus.
Note:
Most invertebrates use some form of extracellular digestion to break down their
food. Flatworms and cnidarians, however, can use both types of digestion to break
down their food.
Vertebrate
Digestive Systems
Vertebrates may have a single stomach, several stomach chambers, or accessory
organs that help to break down ingested food.
Types of vertebrate digestive systems:
Monogastric: Single-chambered Stomach -this type of digestive system consists of
one (“mono”) stomach chamber (“gastric”).
Ex. DIGESTIVE SYSTEM OF MAMMALS like Humans and many animals such as
rabbits have a monogastric digestive system.
• In the rabbit, the
small intestine and
cecum are enlarged to
allow more time to
digest plant material.
• The enlarged organ
provides more surface
area for absorption of
nutrients.
• The process of digestion in monogastric begins with the mouth and the intake of food.
• The teeth play an important role in masticating (chewing) or physically breaking down
food into smaller particles. The enzymes present in saliva also begin to chemically break
down food.
• The esophagus is a long tube that connects the mouth to the stomach. Using peristalsis,
the muscles of the esophagus push the food towards the stomach.
• In order to speed up the actions of enzymes in the stomach, the stomach has an extremely
acidic environment, with a pH between 1.5 and 2.5.
• The gastric juices, which include enzymes in the stomach, act on the food particles and
continue the process of digestion.
• The regulation of passage of material from one chamber to another within the canal is
controlled by ring-like valves called sphincters.
• In the small intestine, enzymes produced by the liver, the small intestine and the
pancreas continue the process of digestion.
• The nutrients are absorbed into the blood stream across the epithelial cells lining
the walls of the small intestines.
• The waste material travels to the large intestine where water is absorbed and the drier
waste material is compacted into feces that are stored until excreted through the
rectum.
Ruminants - Four-chambered stomach Ex. Cows, sheep, goats
• Ruminant are herbivores with a complex stomach called rumen.
• Ruminant animals chew the cud in a process called rumination.
• They digest plant materials such as cellulose fiber (a complex carbohydrate that forms
the main constituent of the cell wall in most plants).
Its significant feature is the presence of a complex stomach with four compartments.
a. Rumen Break down plant fibers
b. Reticulum by fermentation with the help of
c. Omasum microflora.
d. Abomasum - secretes digestive enzyme.
DIGESTIVE SYSTEM OF
MAMMALS (GOAT)
Non-Ruminant- are omnivores or carnivores with a single stomach compartment
within the digestive system.
• The digestive system of non-ruminant animals is called Monogastric.
Ex. Human, horse, dog, rabbit.
• The components of the non-ruminant digestive system are mouth, esophagus,
stomach, small intestine, large intestine and rectum.
• Non-ruminant animals do not chew the cud. Also, they do not digest the plant
materials such as cellulose through fermentation.
Pseudo-ruminants - Some animals, such as camels and alpacas, are pseudo-ruminants.
• They eat a lot of plant material and roughage.
• Digesting plant material is not easy because plant cell walls contain the polymeric
sugar molecule cellulose.
• The digestive enzymes of these animals cannot break down cellulose, but
microorganisms present in the digestive system can. Since the digestive system must
be able to handle large amounts of roughage and break down the cellulose, pseudo-
ruminants have a three-chamber stomach.
• In contrast to ruminants, their cecum (a pouched organ at the beginning of the large
intestine containing many microorganisms that are necessary for the digestion of
plant materials) is large.
Avian (DIGESTIVE SYSTEM OF A BIRDS) -Birds face special challenges when it
comes to obtaining nutrition from food.
• Birds has faster and more efficient digestive system than those of other vertebrate
groups.
• Their beaks or bills replace the lips and mouth of mammals and vary in shape.
• Their tongue do helps manipulate food for swallowing.
• Food passes through esophagus on its way to stomach.
• Birds have a two part stomach: granular portion known as Proventriculus and the
muscular portions known as Gizzard.
• Granular Portion or Proventriculus (also known as the true stomach) -it is where
digestion primarily begins. It is generally a glandular part of the stomach that may
store and/or commence digestion of food before it progresses to the gizzard.
• Muscular Portion or Gizzard- the hind part of the stomach, especially modified
for grinding food. Located between the saclike crop and the intestine, the gizzard has
a thick muscular wall and may contain small stones, or gastritis, that function in the
mechanical breakdown of seeds and other foods.
• The Esophagus has a pouch, called a
crop which stores food.
• Food passes from the crop to the first of
two stomachs, called the
proventriculus, which contains digestive
juices that break down food.
• From the proventriculus, the food enters
the second stomach, called the gizzard,
which grinds food.
• Some birds swallow stones or grit, which are stored in the gizzard, to aid the
grinding process.
• Once the food is sufficiently broken down, it moves into the small intestine, where the
liver and pancreas help with absorbing nutrients. Next is the large intestine, which
is very short for most birds. Where the small and large intestines join are the ceca, two
pouches that help absorb any remaining water from the food and finish the digestive
process.
• Birds do not have separate openings to excrete urine and feces.
• Instead, uric acid from the kidneys is secreted into the large intestine and combined with
waste from the digestive process. This waste is excreted through an opening called the
cloaca.
Digestive System of
Fishes
• The structural components of a fish's digestive system include the mouth, teeth and gill
rakers, esophagus, stomach, pylorus, pyloric caeca, pancreatic tissue
(exocrine and endocrine), liver, gall bladder, intestine and anus.
• A fish's digestive system is adapted to their food habits.
• In predatory (carnivorous) fishes, the mouth is usually large for engulfing prey
whole, or in large chunks, and teeth are present on the jaws (e.g. maxillary and
dentary) and tongue (e.g. glossyhyal) for grasping live prey.
• Gill rakers are short in carnivorous fish and pharyngeal teeth are short and pointed for
moving prey down the throat.
• In omnivorous and planktivorous fishes, the mouth is smaller and is usually devoid of
teeth except for pharyngeal teeth that may be blunt and flat (molariform) for grinding or
sharp and long for shredding.
• Gill rakers in these fish are typically fine to prevent the escape across the gills of small
food particles.
Note:
In carnivorous fish, the stomach is muscular and elastic for holding large prey items,
while in omnivorous and planktivorous fishes the stomach, if present at all, is small
because a more or less constant stream of small food particles can flow directly into
the intestine.
• The oesophagus is also called the gullet or food pipe. This moves the food down
the oesophagus to the stomach. The upper part of the oesophagus is behind the
windpipe (trachea).
• The windpipe is the tube that connects your mouth and nose to your lungs, so they
can breathe.
• Pyloric Caeca where the stomach and intestine meet. Carries out most digestion and
absorption.
• The rectum is the last inch or so of the fish’s colon before it reaches the anus.
• The anus is the opening of the rectum to the outside.
Digestive System of
Reptiles
Reptiles are tetrapod (four-limbed vertebrate) animals in the class Reptilia, comprising
today's turtles, crocodilians, snakes, lizards, tuatara, and their extinct relatives.
• The study of these traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of modern
amphibians, is called herpetology.
Principle Characteristics:
• Are terrestrial vertebrates with body usually covered by scales
• They are cold blooded.
• They have pulmonary and skin breathing.
• Reptiles have many parts of their bodies like humans, they have brain, lungs,
trachea and their digestive system is very similar to human’s.
• Most of the reptiles are insectivorous or carnivorous.
• Their digestion is slower than in mammals.
• Some of them can live a long period of time without eating.
Digestive System of
Amphibians
The digestive system of amphibians has two major components, a digestive tract, and
digestive glands.
• The digestive tract starts from the mouth and ends as the anus, emptying into the
cloaca. The general morphology of these regions is generally similar among the
different organisms under the class Amphibia, although the digestive tract is long in
Apoda and short in Anura.
• The mouth opens directly into the buccal cavity and is bordered by flexible,
immobile lips. Most anurans swallow their food while some have teeth.
• Amphibian teeth are typically bicuspid crowned teeth while Caecilians and a few
frogs have unicuspid curved teeth.
• The pharynx helps in directing food into the esophagus and air into the lungs. Peristaltic
movements propel the food down into the stomach.
• The food starts getting digested in the stomach and passes to the intestinal region.
• Gut chitins and other lytic enzymes help in breaking down the food as the diet consists
of arthropods and smaller invertebrates.
• The small intestines of amphibians have few internal folding and support villi to
increase surface area for absorption of nutrients.
• The large intestine is slightly broader in caecilians, salamanders, and some frogs
compared to other amphibians.
• In some frogs, a valve separates the large and small intestines. The large intestine
empties into the sac-like cloaca, which exits to the outside through the anal vent.
DIGESTIVE SYSTEM
OF A FROG
Digestive system of frog consists of an alimentary canal and its appendages, the
digestive glands.
A. Alimentary Canal:
The digestive tract can be divided into the following zones:
1. Buccal cavity - The mouth is bounded by two toothless jaws—the upper and lower.
The mouth leads into a wide buccal cavity.
2. Pharynx - The buccal cavity narrows posteriorly, and this region is known as
pharynx.
3. Oesophagus - The pharynx leads posteriorly to a short, narrow tube, the oesophagus
or gullet. The oesophagus opens into a saclike stomach.
4. Stomach - The stomach is divisible into an anterior wide chamber towards the
oesophagus, the cardiac stomach and a posterior narrow portion, the pyloric stomach.
• The pyloric stomach leads to a narrow tube, the small intestine.
• The junction of the stomach and small intestine is marked by a sharp constriction.
• Circular sphincter muscles forming the pyloric valve at the constriction regulate the
flow of food from the stomach.
• The first portion of the small intestine lying parallel to the stomach is
duodenum and the rest long, slender, much coiled portion is ileum.
5. Rectum - The small intestine continues posteriorly as a wide tube, the rectum or
large intestine. The rectum opens posteriorly into a short chamber, the cloaca, which
opens to the exterior by an aperture, the cloaca aperture.
B. Digestive Glands:
1. Liver - a large, reddish-brown, bilobed mass.
• The left lobe is larger than the right one and sub-lobed. The two main lobes are
connected by a narrow, short, median portion. Between the two lobes, median in position,
lies a small, thin-walled, greenish, rounded sac, the gall bladder.
• The secretion of the liver, the bile, is stored within the gall bladder.
• The duct which is now called common bile duct, receives secretions from both the liver
and the pancreas and opens into the duodenum.
2. Pancreas - The pancreas is a large, creamy-white, irregular gland, surrounding the bile
duct, into which it pours its secretion, the pancreatic juice. It lies between the duodenum
and the stomach.
Digestion begins in stomach.
• The purpose of digestion is to break down complex food substances like proteins, fats and carbohydrates
into simpler compounds so that the cells of the alimentary tract may absorb them.
• The breaking up of various food substances is done by specific ferments known as enzymes, which are
secreted by various glands. Protein is partly broken down in the stomach into peptone by pepsin, in acid
medium.
• The partly digested food in the stomach passes to the duodenum through the pyloric valve, and is further
digested by the action of pancreatic juice, which also neutralizes stomach acid. Bile helps in
emulsification of lipids.
After the completion of digestion, the nutritive substances which are now in a liquid state are absorbed by
the intestinal cells and passed to the blood. The undigested portion of the food, the excreta, is stored
temporarily in the rectum, and finally thrown out to the exterior through the cloaca.
Digestive System ( reporter no.3 )
Presented by: Group IV
Melanie Paet
Kyla Nicole Ramos
Aubrey Joy Rabang
Diadim Tabbal
Maria Liewelyn Toletino
