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THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM OF VERTEBRATES

MAMMALS: Vole

Pine vole (photo by Bryce Ryan)    < go to CD



Meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus) digestive tract (Stevens & Hume 1995) (CD Figure 5.18)



Figure 2.  Stomach of the vole Microtus arvalis (From Flower, W. H. Lecture VIII, Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy of the Organs of Digestion of the Mammalia. Royal College of Surgeons of England, February and March, 1872)



Figure 3.  Cecum and colon of the Scandinavian lemming. AC, ampulla coli; C, cecum; CS, colonic spiral; C, distal colon (Sperber, Bjornhag, and Riderstrale 1983)


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)