Question

In cockroaches, food is crushed in which part of the body?
A) Crop
B) Gizzard
C) Mesenteron
D) Oesophagus

Answer 1

Hint: The organ which is used in the grinding purposes should be strong enough to crush the food materials. It should have thick muscular structure and teeth like hard chitinous plates.

Complete answer:
Cockroaches do not have teeth and thus for breaking and grinding food particles to digest them properly, they have a muscular organ located behind the crop. This is a gizzard which is also called proventriculus and has chitinous plates that are teeth like hard structures that help in grinding and crushing food particles. The food particles ingested by the cockroach are stored in the crop from where these are transferred to gizzard where these are broken into very small pieces and then transferred to the next parts of the alimentary canal to be digested by the enzymatic actions.

Additional information:
-The anterior part of the gizzard has six chitinous plates or teeth in the six longitudinal folds. Besides the teeth, the folds also contain six cushions like pads. These pads are with the chitinous hairs.
-When contractions occur in the muscular wall of a gizzard, the teeth present in the folds work against each other and grind the food present between them.

So, the correct answer is ‘Gizzard’.

Note:
-A gizzard is generally found in those animals that do not have teeth and generally ingest larger particles of food.
-The various animals having this grinding organ are some crustaceans, earthworms, some fishes, some gastropods, etc.
-In birds, it is present behind the glandular stomach where it is also known as muscular stomach or ventriculus.