Morphological Description Of Inner Ear In Barbus luteus Heckel (Teleostei: Cyprinidae)

The morphological description of inner ear in Barbus luteus have been investigated. The results of the present study revealed that the fish under investigation has a pair of inner ears which are embedded in two otic capsules of the skull. The inner ear contains two main structures, the first is the Osseous Labyrinth (OL), and the second is the Membranous Labyrinth (ML). Both of (OL) and (ML) consist of three semicircular canal (SCC). These are anterior, posterior and horizontal semicircular canals (ASCC, PSCC and HSCC). The (OL) contains three chambers while the (ML) contains saccular structures which are called otoliths organs represented by utriculus (U), sacculus (S) and lagena (L). Each of the saccular structures has a solid structure called otolith. The otoliths are represented by lapillus, sagitta and astericus which are situated in (U), (S) and (L) respectively.