Gross morphology and morphometry of foetal and adult dromedary tongues

Abstract

Gross morphology and morphometry of apparently normal tongues of forty antenatal and ten adult dromedaries (Camelus dromedarius) of both sexes, procured from the Maiduguri Metropolitan abattoir, were studied. This was with the aim of documenting information on these aspects. The thirteen months dromedary gestation period was divided into four quarters for the purpose of the foetal tongue morphometric study, with ten foetuses per quarter. The prenatal and postnatal tongues were grossly observed to be flat apically and oval basally. They were highly flexible, like other ruminants’ tongues, and relatively small to the overall sizes of the study animals. The highest lingual weight percentage of the body weight of 0.39% was attained at the second prenatal growth phase of the dromedary while the least, 0.16%, was attained in the adult. The foetal tongues showed levels of significant increases in sizes and weights throughout the prenatal growth phases. It was concluded that the dromedary tongue is similar to other ruminant tongues and most of the salient gross features, like gustatory and non-gustatory papillae, of the dromedary tongue were already obvious as early as the first prenatal growth phase (2 – 3 months) and the remaining three periods were associated with size increases. In the prenatal dromedary tongues studied, the salient gross features of the tongue were fully evident right from the first quarter of gestation (first three months of prenatal life), but were relatively small in size. Likewise; the mean dimensions and the weights obtained in the present study, showed significant increments across the four-quarters gestation. This is not unrelated with the structural developments of the overall body size and weights.Keywords: Adult, Dromedary, Foetus, Morphometry, Tongue