Arterial blood supply of the ostrich (struthio camelus) heart

Abstract

The current work was focused on giving a full morphological description of the arterial supply of the heart of the ostrich (struthio camelus). The purpose of this work is achieved on eight ostrich hearts. The arterial blood supply of the ostrich heart occurred through the two coronary arteries that originated from the aorta at the left and right aortic sinus. Each coronary artery gave off a deep and a superficial branch. The main arterial blood supply of the ostrich heart came from the superficial branches of the both coronary arteries, while the deep branches of the two coronary arteries were relatively small and originated to supply only the interventricular septum, called the septal branches. The left interatrial branch was the first branch originated from the left coronary artery and originated closely to the origin of the left coronary artery. The superficial branch gave off a conal branch, circumflex branch and continued as an interventricular branch. The interventricular branch gave off an angular branch, ventricular branches, septal branches and terminated by two terminal branches. The circumflex branch gave off ventricular branches and atrial branches. The interventricular septum was mainly supplied by the deep branch of both the right and left coronary artery and also there were a septal supply from the septal branches of both paraconal and subsinosal interventricular artery. There were a numerous homo and intercoronary anastomosis at the cardiac apex.