Anatomical behavior of the celiacomesenteric artery of pirarucu Arapaima gigas Cuvier, 1817 (Osteoglossiforme, Arapaimidae)

Abstract

The pirarucu, Arapaimidae family fish, is one of the most important and emblematic species of Amazon. To investigate their circulatory system anatomics features were used 10 specimens with 74 cm medium total length, from river Araguaia lakes, São Miguel do Araguaia, Goias, Brazil. The fishes had their celomatic cavity open with dorsal aorta artery identified and cannulation where was injected synthetic latex. Fixation of those specimens was by injection of 10% formalin. In that specie, the coeliac-mesenteric artery is the only one arterial vessel responsible to digestive tract flow and always ramified from 2nd, 3rd and 4th left efferent branchial arteries. The stomach is flowing by coeliac artery and a gastric branch of the cecal ventral artery; intestine receives coeliac-mesenteric artery branchs and cranial and caudal mesenterics arteries branchs; the dorsal and ventral cecum are supplied by cecal dorsal and ventral arteries respectively.