In animal anatomy, the mouth is the first portion of the alimentary canal that receives food.
Some animal phyla, including vertebrates, have a complete digestive system, with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other. Which end forms first in ontogeny is a criterion used to classify animals into protostome and deuterostome. The first space of the mouth is the mouth cavity, bounded laterally and in front by the alveolar arches (containing the teeth), and posteriorly by the isthmus of the fauces.
Read more about Mouth: In Human Anatomy
Famous quotes containing the word mouth:
“I was tired of being a woman,
tired of the spoons and the pots,
tired of my mouth and my breasts,
tired of the cosmetics and the silks.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The supreme, the merciless, the destroyer of opposition, the exalted King, the shepherd, the protector of the quarters of the world, the King the word of whose mouth destroys mountains and seas, who by his lordly attack has forced mighty and merciless Kings from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same to acknowledge one supremacy.”
—Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–59 B.C.)
“A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)