The functional morphology of the fore-gut of three species of decapod Crustacea: Cyclograpsus punctatus Milne-Edwards, Diogenes brevirostris Stimpson and Upogebia africana (Ortmann)

In animals the digestive system is, physiologically, always closely related to the type of food eaten. In decapod crustaceans the stomachs contain very complicated morphological structures. It was decided to examine these structures and their possible functions and to determine whether their appearance and function is also related to the type of food eaten. For this examination, three southern African decapods were chosen because little descriptionptive work on the functional aspects of their foreguts has been done.