Abstract
The present study describes the micromorphology of the small intestine and caeca of wild and captive willow grouse. The micromorphology of the small intestine was similar in wild and captive birds, while typical differences were apparent in the caeca, Wild grouse had ciliated epithelium without goblet cells in the neck part of the caeca, captive birds had strongly atrophied cilia and a high number of goblet cells. The epithelium of the body part of caeca of wild birds lodged a great number of spiral-shaped microorganisms and amoebae, which were absent in captive birds. Both the caecal villi and the longitudinal folds were much larger in wild than captive grouse. In the captive grouse the caecal lamina propria was heavily infiltrated with mono-nucleated cells and very often also with polymorphonucleated heterophilic leucocytes. Since only first generation captives were used in this study, the differences in gut morphology of captive and wild grouse must be due to different food and environmental conditions and not to genetic selection.