The gastric groove, a specific adaptation to nutritional ontogeny in eutherian mammals.

In this paper grooves or groove-like structures along the lesser gastric curvature in 19 eutherian mammal species are classified according to their muscular architecture and according to mucosal differentiations. It is shown that the differentiations along the lesser curvature represent morphological and functional links between the length of lactation and weaning times, on the one hand, and the types of digestion applied by the adult animal, on the other.