ANATOMICAL STUDY OF THE TONGUE OF INDIGENOUS COW (BOS INDICUS) IN BANGLADESH WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON PAPILLAE DISTRIBUTION

Abstract

The present study was conducted on the tongue of six apparently healthy indigenous (Bos indicus) cows of different age and sex and they were collected from local market at Dinajpur district and this research work was conducted in the Department of Anatomy and Histology, Dinajpur Government Veterinary College, Dinajpur during the research period from the month of July 2003 to April 2004. After proper euthanasia, the animals were killed and then the tongues of these animals were dissected out from the carcasses and fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin solution. In the present study it was observed that the tongue of indigenous cow (Bos indicus) of Bangladesh has three parts: the root, body and an apex. The dorsum linguae was specially more pronounced in its centre and was occupied by numerous types of masticatory and gustatory papillae. The fine rasp-like filiform papillae were more numerous and directed caudally throughout the dorsum and packed closely in front of the fossa linguae throughout the tip, whereas, the club shaped fungi form papillae were irregularly distributed all over the dorsum among the filiform papillae. The broad headed lentil shaped lenticular papillae was also found in the rostral two-thirds of the dorsum but better developed along the mid-line of the tongue. The large conical papillae of the tongue of Bos indicus occurred in the rostral two-thirds of the dorsum with a higher concentration in the middle portion of the tongue, however, the small ones occurred through out the torus. The vallate papillae of the tongue of Bos indicus were 12-20 in number on either side and dispersed in two irregular rows (25-40) in total along the caudolateral two-thirds of the dorsum. The mucosa of the root of the tongue of Bos indicus did not show any specific papillae but it was rather smooth due to diffused lymphoid tissue distribution (lingual tonsil).