Lijing Huang; Qihang Nie; Pan Mou; Jia Li; Ruiyang Kong; Ruiyang Lan; Yingnan Lyv & Bangyuan Wu

Six Lonchura striata and six Copsychus saularis birds were selected in this study, morphological index of the small intestine was measured by quantitative biology and image analysis. The changes of goblet cells and Na+/K+ATPase were detected by AB-PAS staining and ELISA to inform the different mechanisms of the digestion and absorption of nutrients between the Lonchura striata and Copsychus saularis. The villus height, crypt depth and muscle thickness of each segment of small intestine of Lonchura striata were smaller than those of Copsychus saularis, and the difference of ileum muscle thickness was significant. In addition, the ileum villus height/crypt depth (VH/CD) value of Lonchura striata was significantly less than that of Copsychus saularis. The number of goblet cells in duodenum and jejunum of Lonchura striata and Copsychus saularis had no significant difference, but the number of goblet cells in ileum of Copsychus saularis was significantly larger than that of Lonchura striata. The vitality of Na+/K+-ATPase in different intestinal segments of the Lonchura striata and the Copsychus saularis was different. The vitality of Na+/K+-ATPase in the Lonchura striata was significantly higher than that of the Copsychus saularis. It can be concluded that the digestion and absorption capacity of Copsychus saularis and Lonchura striata are significantly different, and the reason may be due to their different diets and intestinal floras.

KEY WORDS: Lonchura striata; Copsychus saularis; Small intestine; Histological structure; Goblet cells; Na+/K+-ATPase.

HUANG, L.; NIE, Q.; MOU, P.; LI, J.; KONG, R.; LAN, R.; LYV, Y. & WU, B. Comparative study of the histomorphological structure of the small intestine of Lonchura striata and Copsychus saularis. Int. J. Morphol., 40(4):1081-1087, 2022.