Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate the development of the midbrain in the grey breasted helmeted guinea fowl, Numida meleagris galeata, at post-hatch. Domestication of this species of bird is in an increase, but scanty documentation on the development of midbrain (mesencephalon) and how it relates to the neurobiology of this bird is lacking. In our findings, there was a steady increase in the midbrain mean weights found to be 0.0418 ± 0.0081 and 0.2236 ± 0.0224 g on the first day and day 61 post-hatch, respectively. Morphological and cellular development shows the midbrain to develop immediately after hatch at day one. This indicates that auditory-visual activities are fully functional in the wild grey breasted helmeted guinea fowl and capable of independent survival immediately after hatching. Key words: Morpho-histogenesis, midbrain, guinea fowl.

Highlights

  • The helmeted guinea fowl (Numida meleagris galeata) is a native to Africa and belongs to the Phylum, Chordata; Subphylum, Vertebra; Class, Aves; Order, Galliformes; and Family, Numidae

  • In avian, the central nervous system develops from the neural plate, an epithelial sheet that arises from the dorsal ectoderm of the developing embryo (Hallonet et al, 1990)

  • A total of eighty four fertilized guinea fowl eggs purchased from the National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI) Vom, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria and other local breeders within Jos and its environs were used for this study

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The helmeted guinea fowl (Numida meleagris galeata) is a native to Africa and belongs to the Phylum, Chordata; Subphylum, Vertebra; Class, Aves; Order, Galliformes; and Family, Numidae. Several research has been done to study the development of the avian brain, which includes; a prehatch study of the structural organization of grey breasted helmeted guinea fowl (Wanmi et al, 2016), the immunoreactivity of glial cells (Maximina et al, 1998), glial cells in the c en tr al ne r vous s yste m ( CNS) of healthy Passeriformes birds (Peer, 2012) and the development of chicken cerebellar cortex (Serdar and Emrah, 2010) Despite these studies, there exists a dearth of information on the histomorphogenesis of the grey breasted helmeted guinea fowl in Nigeria. An attempt will be made to find out the variations in the developmental anatomy of the midbrain in the grey breasted helmeted guinea fowl with regard to their developmental gross structure histogenesis, which may be helpful in the understanding of the neurobiology of this species of bird despite increase awareness on its domestication

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