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THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM OF VERTEBRATES

MAMMALS: Glider

Greater glider (Petauroides volans) digestive tract (Stevens & Hume 1995)


Table 6.5.  Mean digesta retention time for herbivorous cecum fermenters  (CD Table 7.5)

Although digesta retention times are affected by differences in the diet, and in the body temperatures of the bird, marsupials, and eutherian mammals, cecum fermenters retain fluid digesta as long or longer than particulate digesta. Fluid and small digesta particles are selectively retained by the cecum of small mammals with a large cecum, especially in herbivores with a well-developed colonic separation mechanism. The longer digesta retention times of the marsupials are due, partly, to their lower rate of metabolism. (modified from Stevens and Hume 1995)


Table 8.7b.  (CD Table 9.7b)

* Absorption from cecum (or ceca) alone.
Dashes indicate absence of information. Contributions of SCFA to maintenance energy were estimated from the rate of SCFA production by in vitro isotope dilution or measurements of digesta flow. Total maintenance energy was either calculated as twice the BMR or assumed to be equivalent to ad libitum digestible energy intake in captive, nonreproducing, and adult animals. (From Stevens and Hume 1995.)