Morphology of Digestive Tract and Feeding of the Invasive Chinese Mitten Crab, Eriocheir sinensis (H. Milne Edwards, 1853) (Decapoda: Brachyura: Varunidae), Southern Iraq

The digestive tract in Eriocheir sinensis consists of the alimentary canal which includes a foregut consisting of the mouth, esophagus, and stomach. The mouth is surrounded by several pairs of appendages which are specialized for chemoreception and prey capture while esophagus is short and straight moves food from mouth to the stomach, which look like an oval sac divided in to two parts called the cardiac chamber and the pyloric chamber. The composition of digestive tract were investigated and the diet analysis was assessed using two methods: points and frequency of occurrence. The main food items included eight types, the highest percentage of 43.6% shrimp, 42.8 % detritus and 14.5% sand, while the lowest were (0. 39 %, 0.69% and 0.97% for eggs, plants and filament algae respectively. Feeding intensity and activity values arranged between 12 -15.9 and 76 - 86%, respectively, while the Vacuity index were 14 - 31.6%, and Feeding index values were 59.9 - 79.7%.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-SA

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