Calyx is a term used in animal anatomy for some cuplike areas or structures.

Etymology

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

, from ''calyx'' (from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''κάλυξ, ''case of a bud, husk").

Cnidarians

The

spicules Spicules are any of various small needle-like anatomical structures occurring in organisms Spicule may also refer to: * Spicule (sponge), small skeletal elements of sea sponges * Spicule (nematode), reproductive structures found in male nematodes ...

containing the basal portion of the upper tentacular part of the polyp of some soft corals (also called ''calice'').

Entoprocta

A body part of the Entoprocta from which tentacles arise and the mouth and anus are located.

Echinoderms

The body disk that is covered with a leathery tegumen containing calcareous plates (in crinoids and ophiuroids the main part of the body where the viscera are located).

Humans

Either a

minor calyx The renal calyces are chambers of the kidney through which urine passes. The minor calyces surround the apex of the renal pyramids. Urine formed in the kidney passes through a renal papilla at the apex into the minor calyx; two or three minor cal ...

in the

kidney The kidneys are two reddish-brown bean-shaped organs found in vertebrates. They are located on the left and right in the retroperitoneal space, and in adult humans are about in length. They receive blood from the paired renal arteries; bloo ...

, a conglomeration of two or three minor calyces to form a major calyx, or the Calyx of Held, a particularly large synapse in the mammalian auditory central nervous system, named by H. Held in his 1893 article ''Die centrale Gehörleitung'', due to its flower-petal-like shape. Satzler, K., L. F. Sohl, et al. (2002). "Three-dimensional reconstruction of a calyx of Held and its postsynaptic principal neuron in the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body." J Neurosci 22(24): 10567-79.

Insects

In male insects, a funnel-shaped expansion of the basal part of the '' vas deferens'' (part of the seminal duct). Also in entomology, a flattened cap of neuropile in an insect brain (a component of the corpus pedunculatum) and by certain female insects, an expansion of the oviduct into which the ovarioles open.

References

Cnidarian anatomy Echinoderm anatomy Insect anatomy {{insect-anatomy-stub