The Arterial Supply of the Pelvic Limb of the Adult Ostrich (Struthio camelus)

Abstract

Blood to the pelvic limb of the ostrich is provided by the external iliac and ischiatic arteries that arise from the descending aorta. The external iliac artery (a.) gave rise to the pubic a. that supplied the obturator muscles and continued as the femoral a. The femoral a. gave off three branches: (1) cranial coxal a. to muscles above the pre-acetabular ilium; (2) cranial femoral a. to muscles cranial to the femur, the gastrocnemius muscle, hip and stifle joints and (3) medial femoral a. to muscles caudal and medial to the femur. The ischiatic a. gave rise to the caudal coxal a. that supplied muscles caudal to the femur, muscular branches to the iliotibialis lateralis muscle and to the deep femoral a. that supplied the iliofibularis muscle, cutanea femoralis caudalis and lateralis aa., and branches to the flexors of the leg and knee joint, then terminated as the sural and popliteal arteries. The sural a. supplied most of the flexors of the foot. The popliteal a. supplied the knee joint and flexors of the leg, and then terminated as the cranial and caudal tibial arteries. The caudal tibial a. supplied flexors of the foot. The cranial tibial a. provided four branches to the knee and ankle joints and to the leg. The cranial tibial a. continued into the foot as the common dorsal metatarsal a., which gave off seven different branches to the ankle and foot. With few exceptions, the arteries of the ostrich pelvic limb are similar to those of domestic fowl.

Blood supply and arteriography of the pelvic limb of the Southern caracara (Caracara plancus) and great egret (Ardea alba)

“…In the caracara and great egret, the external iliac artery arose bilaterally from the descending aorta at the level of the medial division of the kidney and supplied the pelvic limb to the level of the knee, which is in agreement with the reported for domestic fowl (Baumel, 1986) and ostrich (El-Nahla et al, 2010). In both birds of this study, the external iliac artery gave off the pubic artery that is similar to the domestic fowl (Baumel, 1986).…”

“…The caracara and great egret showed origin and branching of cranial femoral artery similar to described for the domestic fowl (Baumel, 1986) and ostrich (El-Nahla et al, 2010). It is noteworthy that ambiens muscle was not observed in the great egret; consequently, its ramification also did not, which corroborates the report of the absence of this muscle in herons (Hudson, 1937).…”

“…Midtgård (1982) observed this in all the birds that have this muscle, except in the galiforms. In addition, in this study, poplitea artery emitted caudal tibial artery before becoming cranial tibial artery, as well as in the ostrich (El-Nahla et al, 2010) and in the chicken (Baumel, 1986;McLeod et al, 1964), disagreeing with what has been reported for galiforms, where caudal tibial artery arose from the cranial tibial artery at the level of the fibular artery (Midtgård, 1982).…”

“…Lateral aspect of the thigh and leg of the pelvic limb in the caracara (a, c) e great egret (b, d It was observed that in the same way as in the domestic fowl (Baumel, 1986;McLeod, Trotter, & Lumb, 1964) and ostrich (El-Nahla et al, 2010), the caracara and great egret presented sural artery emerging from the caudal aspect of ischiatic artery at the knee joint level. This artery supplied the caudal muscles to the tibiotarsus.…”

The Arterial Blood Supply of the Foot of the Domesticated Ducks (Anas Domesticus)

“…On reviewing the available literature there was not any adequate information about the arterial supply of this region in the duck. On the other hand the arterial supply of the pelvic limb in birds has been outlined by several authors, Mcleod et al (1964), Koch (1973, Baumel (1975), Nickel et al (1977 and El-Gammal (2012) in the domestic fowl, Fitzgerald (1969) in the coturnix quail, Midtgard (1981) and Dursun (2002) in the different domestic birds, Can et al (2010) in the Japanese quail and El-Nahla et al(2010) in the ostrich. Therefore, current study was performed to be highlight for the arterial vascularization of the foot of this bird as a model which may be helpful in surgical approach to this region in different avian breeds.…”