The oesophageal pouches (also known as sugar glands)[1] are a pair of pouches connected to the oesophagus of all molluscs, and represent a synapomorphy of the phylum.[2]
Morphology
Usually forming a pair of lateral structures, oesophageal pouches take various forms, but usually account for a fair portion of the anterior volume of the creeping molluscs and scaphopods.[3][4][5][6][7] There is a single pouch ventral to the rear of the radula in some nudibranch sea slugs.[6]
The pouches are lined with ciliated secretory cells.[8]
Function
The pouches contain digestive enzymes that break down starch and other polysaccharides,[1] and also extrude mucus.[6]
Occurrence
The features are considered ancestral to molluscs[2] and are present in monoplacophorans,[9] but have been secondarily lost in the Heterobranchia.[10]
However, it is not certain that all oesophageal diverticulae are homologous.[11][12]
^Haszprunar, G. (1989). "The Anatomy of Melanodrymia aurantiaca Hickman, a Coiled Archaeogastropod from the East Pacific Hydrothermal Vents (Mollusca, Gastropoda)". Acta Zoologica. 70 (3): 175–186. doi:10.1111/j.1463-6395.1989.tb01068.x.
^ abcCrampton, D. M. (2010). "Functional anatomy of the buccal apparatus of Onchidoris bilamellata (Mollusca: Opisthobranchia)". The Transactions of the Zoological Society of London. 34: 45–86. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1977.tb00372.x.
^Ponder, W. F. (1991). "Marine Valvatoidean Gastropods—Implications for Early Heterobranch Phylogeny". Journal of Molluscan Studies. 57: 21–32. doi:10.1093/mollus/57.1.21.