Digestive System

Food captured on the large, sticky, bilobed tongue - which is attached at the front and free at the back, so it can be flicked out and instantly withdrawn - passes into the buccal cavity, whose upper jaw carries a row of small maxillary teeth plus two patches of vomerine teeth near the internal nostrils (the lower jaw has no teeth at all). From there the food travels through the pharynx into a short oesophagus and into the stomach, where hydrochloric acid and gastric juice begin digestion, turning the food into a semi-liquid mass called chyme. The chyme then enters the duodenum, the first part of the intestine, which receives bile from the gall bladder (bile is made by the liver and emulsifies fats) and pancreatic juice from the pancreas (which digests carbohydrates, proteins and lipids); digestion is completed in the intestine, and the digested nutrients are absorbed across numerous finger-like …