Morphological, morphometric and topographical description of the digestive tract in Chinchilla lanigera

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe the morphological and topographic aspects of the chinchilla's digestive apparatus (DA) through dissection of ten animals. We collected the DA segments and made the volumetric analysis of cavitary organs through injection of saline solution at 60 °C, and measuring of the tubular organs. The parenchymal organs were weighed. During analysis of the position of organs, evisceration and measuring, it was observed that the oral cavity is typical of rodents, the salivary glands are similar to lagomorphs and organs as esophagus, stomach, duodenum, transversal colon, liver, pancreas and spleen were disposed in similar way to described to other species. On the other hand, jejunum and descending colon were found to be very long and disposed on a wavy way, hanging from the roof of the abdominal cavity. The ileum was found to be similar to other species, but its topographic disposition is from the right to the left, heading to cecum, which is made of two well developed distinct portions. Both portions are located to the left of the median plane. Ascending colon is disposed in a very particular way, in which we observe a double loop which makes a circle at the liver. A relevant characteristic was in evidence comparing the rectum of males and females: males' is longer. Based on these data we conclude that despite the fact that chinchillas are rodents, they have particular characteristics of their own, and other characteristics similar to lagomorphs, being then a connection between these orders.