Histomophological studies on the stomach of Eurasian Hobby ( Falconinae : Falco subbuteo , Linnaeus 1758 ) and its relation with its feeding habits

The avian stomach was a muscular organ, located between the esophagus and the intestine and it was consisted of two parts; the proventriculus and the ventriculus as reported in many text books and previous articles. A morphological study of stomach was carried out, grossly and under light microscopy on ten adult normal healthy Eurasian Hobbies. The stomach was constituted by two chambers: proventriculus and gizzard. The proventriculus was elongated fusiform shaped organ and extended from the level of 2 intercostal space to the level of 4 rib, while the ventricular resembles a biconvex lens and was extended from the level of 4 rib to the level of 7 rib. There is no any proventricular papilla on the gastric epithelium surface. Both, the mucous tunic of the proventriculus and of the ventriculus present folds were lined by simple columnar epithelium. The tunica mucosa of the proventriculus was extensively folded due to the presence of well-developed longitudinal muscle bundles. The Eurasian Hobby stomach ischaracterized by the absence of the isthmus. There are fourventricular muscles that radiating from a powerful fan-shaped tendinous center; two thick and two thin muscles. The luminal surface of the ventriculus have cuticle, which was sloughed and shed small fine area around the pyloric opening and very thin membrane and highly closely adherent to the lining surface of gizzard. The gizzard was separated from the small intestine by a slit-like ventriculo-duodenal opening, which guarded by the very small pyloric sphincter in addition to the pyloric valve which consists of two small folds. [Mohamed M. A. Abumandour. Histomophological studies on the stomach of Eurasian Hobby (Falconinae: Falco subbuteo, Linnaeus 1758) and its relation with its feeding habits. Life Sci J 2014;11(7):809-819] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 117