The jaws of the domesticated fingerling African Catfish (Clarias Gariepinus, Burchell 1822): A morpho-functional study

The jaw micro-architecture of the fingerling African catfish from commercial domesticated pond was investigated to fill the gap from available literature. This becomes important as the animals’ jaw is a predilection site for pollutants, thus employed in lesion diagnosis. The fish jaws were fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin and subjected to routine histological procedure of dehydration in graded ethanol, clearing in xylene and embedding in paraffin wax. Sections were stained for light microscopy. The mound shaped upper lip that projected rostrally was a bilamina membranous tissue containing sandwiched loose irregular tissues. The epidermal epithelium was of stratified squamous cells containing melanophores. The dermis contained loose irregular connective tissues. Internal surface of the upper jaw was lined by stratified squamous epithelium eosinophillic club cells. Skeletal muscles originating from the teeth alveoli were invested considerably into the lips and ventral border of the sandwiched loose connective tissue. Caudal to the lips internally was the dental papilla containing conical caniform teeth rostrally and molariform teeth caudally. Dorsocaudal to the dental region, were bars of elastic cartilage surrounded by perichondrium. Ventral to these cartilage bars and caudal to the dental region was a thick layer of dense regular connective tissue. In the lower jaw, some epithelial eosinophilic club cells presented a halo round the centrally placed nucleus.

Key words: Club cells, melanophores, elastic cartilage, teeth, histology, Nigeria.

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