Cud stretched, forming a vacuum in the gullet that sucks the semi-liquid stomach content into the esophagus. From the esophagus it is taken back to the mouth with retro peristaltic movements. When the stomach content, or the cud, arrives in the mouth of the ruminant, it is pushed against the palate with the tongue to remove excess liquid, the latter is swallowed and the solid material is chewed thoroughly so the cattle can extract the minerals present in the cud brought to the surface during rumination. The function of rumination is that food is physically refined to expose more surface area
Taurodontism dentition although the term is traditionally applied to molar teeth. In some cases taurodontism seems to follow an autosomal dominant type of inheritance. Taurodontism is found in association with amelogenesis imperfecta, ectodermal dysplasia and tricho-dento-osseous syndrome. The term means "bull like" teeth derived from similarity of these teeth to those of ungulate or cud-chewing animals. According to Shaw these can be classified as hypotaurodont, hypertaurodont and mesotaurodont. According to Mangion taurodontism may be: It has also been reported in Klinefelter's syndrome, XXYY and Down's syndrome . The teeth involved are invariably molars, sometimes single and at the other times multiple