Morphological Description of the Esophagus in the Mallard Duck (Anas platyrhynchos)

Abstract

The esophageal morphology of Mallard Duck (Anas platyrhynchos) was investigated to fill the dearthof information on the morphology of esophagus from available literature and help in understandingits digestive tract biology. The esophagus is long and highly distensible, musculomembranous tubularshape, it began from oropharyngeal cavity and terminated on the proventriculus. The esophagus wasdivided into two regions are represented by cervical part and Thoracic part, the crop was absent.Internal lining of the esophagus consisted of un- branched straight longitudinal folds the mean lengthof esophagus was about 25 cm; it was wider in the anterior part than the posterior part.