esophagus

Tube that connects the pharynx to the stomach. In mammals, the oesophagus connects the buccal cavity with the stomach. The stratified squamous non-keratinised epithelium lining the buccal cavity is continued through the pharynx down into the oesophagus. The lowest part of the oesophagus (ca. 2 cm) is lined with gastric mucosa and covered by peritoneum. The main body of the oesophagus is lined with small, simple mucous glands. Each gland opens into the lumen by a long duct which pierces the muscularis mucosae (Wilson and Washington, 1989). A sphincter is situated at the point where the oesophagus enters the stomach to prevent gastro-oesophageal reflux, i.e. to prevent acidic gastric contents from reaching stratified epithelia of the oesophagus, where they can cause inflammation and irritation (Wilson and Washington, 1989; Brown et al., 1993). Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the esophagus is

Tube that connects the pharynx to the stomach. In mammals, the oesophagus connects the buccal cavity with the stomach. The stratified squamous non-keratinised epithelium lining the buccal cavity is continued through the pharynx down into the oesophagus. The lowest part of the oesophagus (ca. 2 cm) is lined with gastric mucosa and covered by peritoneum. The main body of the oesophagus is lined with small, simple mucous glands. Each gland opens into the lumen by a long duct which pierces the muscularis mucosae (Wilson and Washington, 1989). A sphincter is situated at the point where the oesophagus enters the stomach to prevent gastro-oesophageal reflux, i.e. to prevent acidic gastric contents from reaching stratified epithelia of the oesophagus, where they can cause inflammation and irritation (Wilson and Washington, 1989; Brown et al., 1993). The atlas records it as a organ at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the esophagus is

It sits within the digestive system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.

What the esophagus connects to

The atlas records 35 typed relationships for it, across 12 kinds of connection. part of digestive system and upper digestive tract.

Supply and innervation

Arterial supply: esophageal artery and esophageal branches of left gastric artery. Venous drainage: esophageal vein.

Also called

Also recorded as gullet and oesophagus. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001043, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: digestive system and upper digestive tract.
• A kind of: organ and subdivision of digestive tract.
• contains: abdominal part of esophagus, adventitia of esophagus, cervical part of esophagus, epithelium of esophagus, esophagus mucosa and esophagus muscularis mucosa, and 13 more.
• flows to: stomach and chordate pharynx.
• contributes to morphology of: epithelium of esophagus and smooth muscle of esophagus.
• Supplied by: esophageal artery and esophageal branches of left gastric artery.
• Develops from: foregut.
• located in: bolus of food.

Questions

Where is the esophagus?

It sits within the digestive system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.

What does the esophagus connect to?

Part of: digestive system and upper digestive tract.

Is the esophagus the same in other species?

Leumas holds the same relationship vocabulary for every species it carries, so where another dataset records this structure you can put the two side by side on /compare.