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The Journal of Experimental Biology 205, 1617-1624 (2002)
© 2002 The Company of Biologists Limited

The digestive tract of Nautilus pompilius (Cephalopoda, Tetrabranchiata): an X-ray analytical and computational tomography study on the living animal

Bettina Westermann1,*, Peter Ruth1, Horst Detlef Litzlbauer2, Ingrid Beck3, Knut Beuerlein1, Henrike Schmidtberg1, Erhard F. Kaleta3 and Rudolf Schipp1

1 Institut für Allgemeine und Spezielle Zoologie, Bereich Entwicklungsbiologie, Stephanstrasse 24, D-35390 Giessen, Germany
2 Zentrum für diagnostische Radiologie der Chirurgie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Klinikstrasse 29, 35392 Giessen, Germany
3 Institut für Geflügelkrankheiten der Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Frankfurter Strasse 91, 35392 Giessen, Germany

* e-mail: Bettina.Westermann{at}chemie.bio.uni-giessen.de

Accepted 25 March 2002

Using X-ray analytical studies and computational tomography, the position of the digestive tract of the tetrabranchiate cephalopod Nautilus pompilius L. was demonstrated in a living animal. For the first time, a detailed analysis of the rate of digestion and the duration of the different phases of a digestive cycle has been made using these in vivo methods. At 20 min after food intake, the food has entered the stomach, where it is reduced to small pieces; most is stored in the crop, which is enlarged to approximately four times its original size. The chyme reaches the midgut gland 3 h and the rectal loop 5 h after food intake. The time between food intake and elimination is 12 h. Thus, in Nautilus pompilius, digestion takes approximately the same time as described for nectobenthic sepioids and benthic octopods but is approximately 6 h longer than in loliginids, which have a pelagic mode of life. Furthermore, the three-dimensional structure of the digestive tract of a living Nautilus pompilius L. was demonstrated using computational tomography.

Key words: digestive organ, morphology, histology, three-dimensional reproduction, X-ray examination, computational tomography, Nautilus pompilius, Cephalopoda






© The Company of Biologists Ltd 2002