Moraes P T de Barros, Pacheco M R, de Souza W M, da Silva R A, Neto P B S, Barreto C S de Figueiredo, Ribeiro A A C M
Departamento de Cirurgia, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo-SP, Brazil.
Anat Histol Embryol. 2002 Dec;31(6):362-6. doi: 10.1046/j.1439-0264.2002.00418.x.
The digestive system of the capybara has been investigated because of its coprofagia habits, important for their absorptive activity. These species present differences in terms of gastrointestinal morphological characters when compared with other rodents. Macroscopiclly, the stomach of the capybara is constituted of the following parts: cardiac, pyloric, body, fundic and gastric diverticulum. It presents two curvatures, one big and another small. Externally, the presence of gastric bands (tenias) is observed. With regards to the volumetric view, the gastric capacity varies from 850 to 2010 ml, with an average of 1498.57 ml. So, the stomach of this animal can be classified as a simple stomach, in the format of a curved sack and similar to an inverted letter 'J'. The gastric mucous membrane presents a surface filled by numerous tortuous gastric folds and longitudinally distributed along all its extension. The mucous tunic also possesses recesses located among the successive gastric folds, which were denoted as gastric parts with numerous openings described as gastric pits. In the cardiac part, a glandular epithelium with cardiac glands is noticed containing a lot of parietal and mucous neck cells. The fundic part, body and gastric diverticulum contain proper gastric glands with main, parietal and mucous neck cells. Finally, the pyloric part has pyloric glands with two cellular types, mucous neck and parietal cells.
水豚的消化系统因其食粪习性而受到研究，这种习性对其吸收活动很重要。与其他啮齿动物相比，这些物种在胃肠道形态特征方面存在差异。从宏观上看，水豚的胃由以下部分组成：贲门部、幽门部、胃体、胃底部和胃憩室。它有两个弯曲，一个大弯和一个小弯。在外部，可以观察到胃带（胃系膜）的存在。从容积角度来看，胃容量在850至2010毫升之间变化，平均为1498.57毫升。因此，这种动物的胃可以归类为单胃，呈弯曲袋状，类似于倒置的字母“J”。胃黏膜表面布满了许多曲折的胃皱襞，并沿其整个延伸方向纵向分布。黏膜层在连续的胃皱襞之间也有凹陷，这些凹陷被称为有许多开口的胃小区，称为胃小凹。在贲门部，可见含有许多壁细胞和黏液颈细胞的贲门腺组成的腺上皮。胃底部、胃体和胃憩室含有具有主细胞、壁细胞和黏液颈细胞的固有胃腺。最后，幽门部有含有黏液颈细胞和壁细胞两种细胞类型的幽门腺。
