The digestion
The tiger is a mammal, so his digestion is actually more or less the same as ours. The only difference is that his digestion is more specialised in digesting meat.
Let's follow the way of the food.
- The mouth
Digestion already starts In the mouth. The salivary glands produces saliva. Saliva contains the enzyme amylase, which digestes amylose or starch.
That's why it's important that we chew our food well. First it divides the food in smaller pieces for a better digestion, second to grind it with saliva, to stimulate the digestion of starch.
Lengthways cross-section trough mouth and throat, at the right by breathing out.
When we swallow two things happen that prevent the food from going into the wrong pipe: First there is the uvula, that is pulled up when we swallow to prevent the food to go into our nasal cavity and second the epiglottis that prevents the food from going into the windpipe, which is the reason why we can't breath and swallow at the same time.
- The esophagus
The esophagus only serves for transporting the food to our stomach. It does this by making peristaltic movement.
These are the movements where the the side of the esophagus first widens and later contracts. On this way the food is pushed further away to the stomach. This takes only 1 second.
- The stomach
After the esophagus the food arrives in the stomach, where it is grinded with gastric juice. This gastric juice contains 3 things:
- The enzyme pepsin.
Pepsin breaks proteins into mono-, di- and polypeptides. But to let pepsin doing it's work, it should be in a very acid environment. A pH of 3 would be perfect. Gastric acid (see B.) cares for that environment.
- Gastric acid
Gastric acid is an acid, it's hydrochloric acid. makes the environment acidic and lets pepsin (see A.) do its work properly, to hasten the digestion.
- Gastric mucosa
Gastric mucosa is made to protect the gastric side against the hydrochloric acid. On this way the mucosa will burn away and not the gastric side.
The stomach moulds the food some hours and after that it sends regular a small amount of the food into the duodenum. To ensure that only small amounts departs, there is at the bottom of the stomach a orbicular muscle.
- The Duodenum
At the end of the duodenum the pancreas adds its juice and the gall-bladder its gall, which is produced by the liver (the gall-bladder only serves as a store) to the food. Gal does two things:
- It neutralizes the acidic environment.
In the duodenum the enzyme trypsin is active. This enzyme works best in an environment with pH 8. Gall neutralizes this acidic environment and makes it even a little alkalinic. Trypsin digests the lipids to glycerin and 3 fatty acids.
- It emulsifies lipids
Gall emulsifies lipids, which means that it divides the "big" fat-drops into more smaller ones. This will make the digestion easier and faster.
The pancreas secretes pancreas juice. This contains enzymes that break of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids.
- The small intestine
After the duodenum the half-digested food continues its way to the small intestine. This small intestine is about 7 meters long and is the most important link in the digestion. It digests all the undigested parts and absorbes all nutrients. The small enteric juice digests peptides (=half digested proteins), lipids, saccharose, maltose (= half digested starch) and lactose (= little sugars), thanks to its enzymes.
The small intestines then absorb the nutrients through intestinal wall. To promote this absortion, the small intestine has intestinal valleculas. This increases the contact surface. We see also intestinal villi on the wall of the intestinal valleculas. But these intestinal villi are subdived again in little wrinkles: the microvilli.
- The large intestine
The large intestine consist of the colon.
The function of the colon is to push the water out of the pulp that's left and the convert of this pulp to a fixed substance. Because the substance that's left has no longer use for our body, it exits the body in the shape of the feces, the excrement.
- The rectum and anus
The rectum receives these feces and stores them till it has a decent amount of it. When this amount is big enough, the tiger has to unburden himself. The feces are hold by the anal sphincter, which is a orbicular muscle.
Digestion already starts In the mouth. The salivary glands produces saliva. Saliva contains the enzyme amylase, which digestes amylose or starch.
That's why it's important that we chew our food well. First it divides the food in smaller pieces for a better digestion, second to grind it with saliva, to stimulate the digestion of starch.
Lengthways cross-section trough mouth and throat, at the right by breathing out.
When we swallow two things happen that prevent the food from going into the wrong pipe: First there is the uvula, that is pulled up when we swallow to prevent the food to go into our nasal cavity and second the epiglottis that prevents the food from going into the windpipe, which is the reason why we can't breath and swallow at the same time.
The esophagus only serves for transporting the food to our stomach. It does this by making peristaltic movement.
These are the movements where the the side of the esophagus first widens and later contracts. On this way the food is pushed further away to the stomach. This takes only 1 second.
After the esophagus the food arrives in the stomach, where it is grinded with gastric juice. This gastric juice contains 3 things:
- The enzyme pepsin.
- Gastric acid
- Gastric mucosa
Pepsin breaks proteins into mono-, di- and polypeptides. But to let pepsin doing it's work, it should be in a very acid environment. A pH of 3 would be perfect. Gastric acid (see B.) cares for that environment.
Gastric acid is an acid, it's hydrochloric acid. makes the environment acidic and lets pepsin (see A.) do its work properly, to hasten the digestion.
Gastric mucosa is made to protect the gastric side against the hydrochloric acid. On this way the mucosa will burn away and not the gastric side.
The stomach moulds the food some hours and after that it sends regular a small amount of the food into the duodenum. To ensure that only small amounts departs, there is at the bottom of the stomach a orbicular muscle.
At the end of the duodenum the pancreas adds its juice and the gall-bladder its gall, which is produced by the liver (the gall-bladder only serves as a store) to the food. Gal does two things:
- It neutralizes the acidic environment.
- It emulsifies lipids
In the duodenum the enzyme trypsin is active. This enzyme works best in an environment with pH 8. Gall neutralizes this acidic environment and makes it even a little alkalinic. Trypsin digests the lipids to glycerin and 3 fatty acids.
Gall emulsifies lipids, which means that it divides the "big" fat-drops into more smaller ones. This will make the digestion easier and faster.
The pancreas secretes pancreas juice. This contains enzymes that break of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids.
After the duodenum the half-digested food continues its way to the small intestine. This small intestine is about 7 meters long and is the most important link in the digestion. It digests all the undigested parts and absorbes all nutrients. The small enteric juice digests peptides (=half digested proteins), lipids, saccharose, maltose (= half digested starch) and lactose (= little sugars), thanks to its enzymes.
The large intestine consist of the colon.
The function of the colon is to push the water out of the pulp that's left and the convert of this pulp to a fixed substance. Because the substance that's left has no longer use for our body, it exits the body in the shape of the feces, the excrement.
The rectum receives these feces and stores them till it has a decent amount of it. When this amount is big enough, the tiger has to unburden himself. The feces are hold by the anal sphincter, which is a orbicular muscle.