Grandry's corpuscles
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Tactile corpuscles that occur in the papillae of the beak and tongue of birds. Grandry corpuscles consist of a few extremely large cells that contain granules similar to Merkel cells and are ensheathed by glial cells. They respond to pressure as rapidly adapting mechanoreceptors.
Grandry's and Merkel's corpuscles are not identical, nor do they occupy similar locations. The mammalian Merkel cell is in the epidermis of vertebrates, while Grandry's corpuscles occur only in waterfowl.
Bibliography
- M. Grandry:
Recherches sur les corpuscules de Pacini.
Journal de l'anatomie et de la physiologie normales et pathologiques de l'homme et des animaux, Paris, 1869, 6: 390-395.
- K. Toyoshima:
Are Merkel and Grandry cells two varieties of the same cell in birds?
Archives of Histology and Cytology, Niigata, Japan, 1993, 56: 167-175.