Crop (anatomy) Crop (anatomy) A crop (sometimes also called a croup or a craw, or ingluvies) is a thin-walled expanded portion of the alimentary tract used for the storage of food prior to digestion. This anatomical structure is found in a wide variety of animals. It has been found in birds, and in invertebrate animals including gastropods (snails and slugs), earthworms, leeches, and insects. Cropping is used by bees to temporarily store nectar of flowers. When bees "suck" nectar, it is stored in their crops. In a bird's digestive system, the crop is an expanded, muscular pouch near the gullet or throat.
Methods used to study memory use single cell recordings solely for experimental purposes is exclusive to animal testing and has greatly increased our understanding of memory systems. Comparisons of the neuroanatomy of caching and non-caching birds has shed light on the neural basis of spatial memory. David Sherry and his colleagues devised experiments using the displacement of landmarks, to show that caching birds rely on spatial memory and landmark cues to find their caches, and local changes in cache appearance had no effect on food retrieval. They were able to show that changes in neurogenesis are directly related to food storing behavior. Food caching behavior