![Australien-Krokodil](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Australien-Krokodil.JPG)
In
animal
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...
anatomy
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...
, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the
alimentary canal
The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The GI tract contains all the major organs of the digestive system, in humans ...
, bounded on the outside by the lips and inside by the
pharynx
The pharynx (plural: pharynges) is the part of the throat behind the mouth and nasal cavity, and above the oesophagus and trachea (the tubes going down to the stomach and the lungs). It is found in vertebrates and invertebrates, though its struc ...
. In
tetrapods
Tetrapods (; ) are four-limbed vertebrate animals constituting the superclass Tetrapoda (). It includes extant and extinct amphibians, sauropsids (reptiles, including dinosaurs and therefore birds) and synapsids (pelycosaurs, extinct therapsids ...
, it contains the tongue and, except for some like
birds
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
, teeth. This cavity is also known as the buccal cavity, from the Latin ''bucca'' ("cheek").
Some animal
phyla Phyla, the plural of ''phylum'', may refer to:
* Phylum, a biological taxon between Kingdom and Class
* by analogy, in linguistics, a large division of possibly related languages, or a major language family which is not subordinate to another
Phyl ...
, including
arthropod
Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...
s,
mollusc
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...
s and
chordate
A chordate () is an animal of the phylum Chordata (). All chordates possess, at some point during their larval or adult stages, five synapomorphies, or primary physical characteristics, that distinguish them from all the other taxa. These fiv ...
s, have a complete
digestive system
The human digestive system consists of the gastrointestinal tract plus the accessory organs of digestion (the tongue, salivary glands, pancreas, liver, and gallbladder). Digestion involves the breakdown of food into smaller and smaller compone ...
, with a mouth at one end and an
anus
The anus (Latin, 'ring' or 'circle') is an opening at the opposite end of an animal's digestive tract from the mouth. Its function is to control the expulsion of feces, the residual semi-solid waste that remains after food digestion, which, d ...
at the other. Which end forms first in
ontogeny
Ontogeny (also ontogenesis) is the origination and development of an organism (both physical and psychological, e.g., moral development), usually from the time of fertilization of the egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to the stu ...
is a criterion used to classify
bilateria
The Bilateria or bilaterians are animals with bilateral symmetry as an embryo, i.e. having a left and a right side that are mirror images of each other. This also means they have a head and a tail (anterior-posterior axis) as well as a belly and ...
n animals into
protostome
Protostomia () is the clade of animals once thought to be characterized by the formation of the organism's mouth before its anus during embryonic development. This nature has since been discovered to be extremely variable among Protostomia's memb ...
s and
deuterostome
Deuterostomia (; in Greek) are animals typically characterized by their anus forming before their mouth during embryonic development. The group's sister clade is Protostomia, animals whose digestive tract development is more varied. Some exampl ...
s.
Development
![Protovsdeuterostomes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Protovsdeuterostomes.svg)
In the first
multicellular animals, there was probably no mouth or gut and food particles were engulfed by the cells on the exterior surface by a process known as
endocytosis
Endocytosis is a cellular process in which substances are brought into the cell. The material to be internalized is surrounded by an area of cell membrane, which then buds off inside the cell to form a vesicle containing the ingested material. E ...
. The particles became enclosed in
vacuole
A vacuole () is a membrane-bound organelle which is present in plant and fungal cells and some protist, animal, and bacterial cells. Vacuoles are essentially enclosed compartments which are filled with water containing inorganic and organic mo ...
s into which enzymes were secreted and digestion took place
intracellular
This glossary of biology terms is a list of definitions of fundamental terms and concepts used in biology, the study of life and of living organisms. It is intended as introductory material for novices; for more specific and technical definitions ...
ly. The digestive products were absorbed into the cytoplasm and diffused into other cells. This form of digestion is used nowadays by simple organisms such as ''
Amoeba
An amoeba (; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; plural ''am(o)ebas'' or ''am(o)ebae'' ), often called an amoeboid, is a type of Cell (biology), cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and ret ...
'' and ''
Paramecium
''
''Paramecium'' ( , ; also spelled ''Paramoecium'') is a genus of eukaryotic, unicellular ciliates, commonly studied as a representative of the ciliate group. ''Paramecia'' are widespread in freshwater, brackish, and marine environments and a ...
'' and also by
sponges
Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through ...
which, despite their large size, have no mouth or gut and capture their food by endocytosis.
However,
most animals have a mouth and a gut, the lining of which is continuous with the epithelial cells on the surface of the body. A few animals which live parasitically originally had guts but have secondarily lost these structures. The original gut of
diploblast
Eumetazoa (), also known as diploblasts, Epitheliozoa, or Histozoa, are a proposed basal animal clade as a sister group of the Porifera (sponges). The basal eumetazoan clades are the Ctenophora and the ParaHoxozoa. Placozoa is now also seen as a ...
ic animals probably consisted of a mouth and one-way gut. Some modern invertebrates still have such a system: food being ingested through the mouth, partially broken down by enzymes secreted in the gut, and the resulting particles engulfed by the other cells in the gut lining. Indigestible waste is ejected through the mouth.
[
In animals at least as complex as an ]earthworm
An earthworm is a terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. They exhibit a tube-within-a-tube body plan; they are externally segmented with corresponding internal segmentation; and they usually have setae on all segments. Th ...
, the embryo
An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male spe ...
forms a dent on one side, the blastopore
Gastrulation is the stage in the early embryonic development of most animals, during which the blastula (a single-layered hollow sphere of cells), or in mammals the blastocyst is reorganized into a multilayered structure known as the gastrula. Be ...
, which deepens to become the archenteron
The primary gut that forms during gastrulation in a developing embryo is known as the archenteron, the gastrocoel or the primitive digestive tube. It develops into the endoderm and mesoderm of an animal.
Formation in sea urchins
As primary mesen ...
, the first phase in the formation of the gut. In deuterostomes, the blastopore becomes the anus while the gut eventually tunnels through to make another opening, which forms the mouth. In the protostomes, it used to be thought that the blastopore formed the mouth ('' proto–'' meaning "first") while the anus formed later as an opening made by the other end of the gut. More recent research, however, shows that in protostomes the edges of the slit-like blastopore close up in the middle, leaving openings at both ends that become the mouth and anus.
Anatomy
Invertebrates
Apart from sponges and placozoa
The Placozoa are a basal form of marine free-living (non-parasitic) multicellular organism. They are the simplest in structure of all animals. Three genera have been found: the classical ''Trichoplax adhaerens'', ''Hoilungia hongkongensis'', an ...
ns, almost all animals have an internal gut cavity which is lined with gastrodermal cells. In less advanced invertebrates such as the sea anemone
Sea anemones are a group of predation, predatory marine invertebrates of the order (biology), order Actiniaria. Because of their colourful appearance, they are named after the ''Anemone'', a terrestrial flowering plant. Sea anemones are classifi ...
, the mouth also acts as an anus. Circular muscles around the mouth are able to relax or contract in order to open or close it. A fringe of tentacles thrusts food into the cavity and it can gape widely enough to accommodate large prey items. Food passes first into a pharynx
The pharynx (plural: pharynges) is the part of the throat behind the mouth and nasal cavity, and above the oesophagus and trachea (the tubes going down to the stomach and the lungs). It is found in vertebrates and invertebrates, though its struc ...
and digestion occurs extracellularly in the gastrovascular cavity
The gastrovascular cavity is the primary organ of digestion and circulation in two major animal phyla: the Coelenterates or cnidarians (including jellyfish and corals) and Platyhelminthes (flatworms). The cavity may be extensively branched into ...
. Annelids have simple tube-like guts and the possession of an anus allows them to separate the digestion of their foodstuffs from the absorption of the nutrients.
Many molluscs have a radula
The radula (, ; plural radulae or radulas) is an anatomical structure used by molluscs for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food ...
which is used to scrape microscopic particles off surfaces. In invertebrates with hard exoskeletons, various mouthparts may be involved in feeding behaviour. Insects have a range of mouthparts suited to their mode of feeding. These include mandibles, maxillae and labium and can be modified into suitable appendages for chewing, cutting, piercing, sponging and sucking. Decapods
The Decapoda or decapods (literally "ten-footed") are an order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, including many familiar groups, such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp and prawns. Most decapods are scavengers. The order is estim ...
have six pairs of mouth appendages, one pair of mandibles, two pairs of maxillae and three of maxilliped
An appendage (or outgrowth) is an external body part, or natural prolongation, that protrudes from an organism's body.
In arthropods, an appendage refers to any of the homologous body parts that may extend from a body segment, including anten ...
s. Sea urchins have a set of five sharp calcareous plates which are used as jaws and are known as Aristotle's lantern.
Vertebrates
In vertebrates, the first part of the digestive system is the buccal cavity
The buccal space (also termed the buccinator space) is a fascial spaces of the head and neck, fascial space of the head and neck (sometimes also termed fascial tissue spaces or tissue spaces). It is a potential space in the cheek, and is paired on ...
, commonly known as the mouth. The buccal cavity of a fish is separated from the opercular cavity by the gills. Water flows in through the mouth, passes over the gills and exits via the operculum or gill slit
Gill slits are individual openings to gills, i.e., multiple gill arches, which lack a single outer cover. Such gills are characteristic of cartilaginous fish such as sharks and rays, as well as deep-branching vertebrates such as lampreys. In con ...
s. Nearly all fish have jaws
Jaws or Jaw may refer to:
Anatomy
* Jaw, an opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth
** Mandible, the lower jaw
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Jaws (James Bond), a character in ''The Spy Who Loved Me'' and ''Moonraker''
* ...
and may seize food with them but most feed by opening their jaws, expanding their pharynx and sucking in food items. The food may be held or chewed by teeth located in the jaws, on the roof of the mouth, on the pharynx or on the gill arch
Branchial arches, or gill arches, are a series of bony "loops" present in fish, which support the gills. As gills are the primitive condition of vertebrates, all vertebrate embryos develop pharyngeal arches, though the eventual fate of these arc ...
es.
Nearly all amphibians are carnivorous as adults. Many catch their prey by flicking out an elongated tongue with a sticky tip and drawing it back into the mouth where they hold the prey with their jaws. They then swallow their food whole without much chewing. They typically have many small hinged pedicellate teeth Pedicellate teeth are a tooth morphology today unique to modern amphibians, but also seen in a variety of extinct labyrinthodonts. Pedicellate teeth consist of a tooth crown and a base (both composed of dentine) separated by a layer of uncalcifie ...
, the bases of which are attached to the jaws while the crowns break off at intervals and are replaced. Most amphibians have one or two rows of teeth in both jaws but some frogs lack teeth in the lower jaw. In many amphibians there are also vomerine teeth
The vomer (; lat, vomer, lit=ploughshare) is one of the unpaired facial bones of the skull. It is located in the midsagittal line, and articulates with the sphenoid, the ethmoid, the left and right palatine bones, and the left and right maxill ...
attached to the bone in the roof of the mouth.
The mouths of reptiles are largely similar to those of mammals. The crocodilia
Crocodilia (or Crocodylia, both ) is an order of mostly large, predatory, semiaquatic reptiles, known as crocodilians. They first appeared 95 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period ( Cenomanian stage) and are the closest living ...
ns are the only reptiles to have teeth anchored in sockets in their jaws. They are able to replace each of their approximately 80 teeth up to 50 times during their lives. Most reptiles are either carnivorous or insectivorous but turtles are herbivorous. Lacking teeth that are suitable for efficiently chewing of their food, turtles often have gastrolith
A gastrolith, also called a stomach stone or gizzard stone, is a rock held inside a gastrointestinal tract. Gastroliths in some species are retained in the muscular gizzard and used to grind food in animals lacking suitable grinding teeth. In othe ...
s in their stomach to further grind the plant material. Snakes have a very flexible lower jaw, the two halves of which are not rigidly attached, and numerous other joints in their skull. These modifications allow them to open their mouths wide enough to swallow their prey whole, even if it is wider than they are.
Birds do not have teeth, relying instead on other means of gripping and macerating their food. Their beak
The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for eating, preening, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food ...
s have a range of sizes and shapes according to their diet and are composed of elongated mandibles. The upper mandible may have a nasofrontal hinge allowing the beak to open wider than would otherwise be possible. The exterior surface of beaks is composed of a thin, horny sheath of keratin
Keratin () is one of a family of structural fibrous proteins also known as ''scleroproteins''. Alpha-keratin (α-keratin) is a type of keratin found in vertebrates. It is the key structural material making up scales, hair, nails, feathers, ho ...
. Nectar feeders such as hummingbird
Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics aro ...
s have specially adapted brushy tongues for sucking up nectar from flowers.
In mammals the buccal cavity is typically roofed by the hard
Hard may refer to:
* Hardness, resistance of physical materials to deformation or fracture
* Hard water, water with high mineral content
Arts and entertainment
* ''Hard'' (TV series), a French TV series
* Hard (band), a Hungarian hard rock super ...
and soft palate
The soft palate (also known as the velum, palatal velum, or muscular palate) is, in mammals, the soft tissue constituting the back of the roof of the mouth. The soft palate is part of the palate of the mouth; the other part is the hard palate. ...
s, floored by the tongue
The tongue is a muscular organ (anatomy), organ in the mouth of a typical tetrapod. It manipulates food for mastication and swallowing as part of the digestive system, digestive process, and is the primary organ of taste. The tongue's upper surfa ...
and surrounded by the cheek
The cheeks ( la, buccae) constitute the area of the face below the eyes and between the nose and the left or right ear. "Buccal" means relating to the cheek. In humans, the region is innervated by the buccal nerve. The area between the inside ...
s, salivary glands
The salivary glands in mammals are exocrine glands that produce saliva through a system of ducts. Humans have three paired major salivary glands (parotid, submandibular, and sublingual), as well as hundreds of minor salivary glands. Salivary gla ...
, upper and lower teeth
A tooth ( : teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, tear ...
. The upper teeth are embedded in the upper jaw
The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The t ...
and the lower teeth in the lower jaw
In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...
, which articulates with the temporal bone
The temporal bones are situated at the sides and base of the skull, and lateral to the temporal lobes of the cerebral cortex.
The temporal bones are overlaid by the sides of the head known as the temples, and house the structures of the ears. Th ...
s of the skull
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...
. The lips
The lips are the visible body part at the mouth of many animals, including humans. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech. Human lips are a tactile sensory organ, and can be ...
are soft and fleshy folds which shape the entrance into the mouth. The buccal cavity empties through the pharynx
The pharynx (plural: pharynges) is the part of the throat behind the mouth and nasal cavity, and above the oesophagus and trachea (the tubes going down to the stomach and the lungs). It is found in vertebrates and invertebrates, though its struc ...
into the oesophagus
The esophagus (American English) or oesophagus (British English; both ), non-technically known also as the food pipe or gullet, is an organ in vertebrates through which food passes, aided by peristaltic contractions, from the pharynx to the ...
.
Other functions of the mouth
Crocodilia
Crocodilia (or Crocodylia, both ) is an order of mostly large, predatory, semiaquatic reptiles, known as crocodilians. They first appeared 95 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period ( Cenomanian stage) and are the closest living ...
ns living in the tropics can gape with their mouths to provide cooling by evaporation
Evaporation is a type of vaporization that occurs on the surface of a liquid as it changes into the gas phase. High concentration of the evaporating substance in the surrounding gas significantly slows down evaporation, such as when humidi ...
from the mouth lining. Some mammals rely on panting for thermoregulation
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature ...
as it increases evaporation of water across the moist surfaces of the lungs, the tongue and mouth. Birds also avoid overheating by gular fluttering, flapping the wings near the gular (throat) skin, similar to panting in mammals.
Various animals use their mouths in threat displays. They may gape widely, exhibit their teeth prominently or flash the startling colours of the mouth lining. This display allows each potential combatant an opportunity to assess the weapons of their opponent and lessens the likelihood of actual combat being necessary.
A number of species of bird use a gaping, open beak in their fear and threat displays. Some augment the display by hissing or breathing heavily, while others clap their beaks.
Mouths are also used as part of the mechanism for producing sounds for communication. To produce sounds, air is forced from the lungs over vocal cord
In humans, vocal cords, also known as vocal folds or voice reeds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through vocalization. The size of vocal cords affects the pitch of voice. Open when breathing and vibrating for speech ...
s in the larynx. In humans, the pharynx, the soft palate, the hard palate, the alveolar ridge
The alveolar process () or alveolar bone is the thickened ridge of bone that contains the tooth sockets on the jaw bones (in humans, the maxilla and the mandible). The structures are covered by gums as part of the oral cavity.
The synonymous ter ...
, the tongue, the teeth and the lips are termed articulators
An articulator is a mechanical hinged device used in dentistry to which plaster casts of the maxillary (upper) and mandibular (lower) jaw are fixed, reproducing some or all the movements of the mandible in relation to the maxilla. The human maxi ...
and play their part in the production of speech. Varying the position of the tongue in relation to the other articulators or moving the lips restricts the airflow from the lungs in different ways and changes the mouth's resonating properties, producing a range of different sounds. In frogs, the sounds can be amplified using sacs in the throat region. The vocal sacs can be inflated and deflated and act as resonators to transfer the sound to the outside world. A bird's song is produced by the flow of air over a vocal organ at the base of the trachea
The trachea, also known as the windpipe, is a Cartilage, cartilaginous tube that connects the larynx to the bronchi of the lungs, allowing the passage of air, and so is present in almost all air-breathing animals with lungs. The trachea extends ...
, the syrinx
In classical Greek mythology, Syrinx (Greek Σύριγξ) was a nymph and a follower of Artemis, known for her chastity. Pursued by the amorous god Pan, she ran to a river's edge and asked for assistance from the river nymphs. In answer, sh ...
. For each burst of song the bird opens its beak and closes it again afterwards. The beak may move slightly and may contribute to the resonance but the song originates elsewhere.
See also
* Human mouth
In human anatomy, the mouth is the first portion of the alimentary canal that receives food and produces saliva. The oral mucosa is the mucous membrane epithelium lining the inside of the mouth.
In addition to its primary role as the begin ...
*Oral manifestations of systemic disease Oral manifestations of systematic disease are signs and symptoms of disease occurring elsewhere in the body detected in the oral cavity and oral secretions. Hyperglycemia, High blood sugar can be detected by sampling saliva. Saliva sampling may be a ...
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Authority control
Human head and neck
Animal anatomy
Digestive system
Facial features