crop

Two white-bellied parrots with bulging crops after feeding. As a greylag goose eats grass, the full crop is clearly visible. One greater flamingo-chick in Zoo Basel is fed on crop milk. The crop (serial 4) of a pigeon (Columba livia) is prominently seen at the beginning of the alimentary canal.

The crop (also the croup, the craw, the ingluvies, and the sublingual pouch) is a thin-walled, expanded portion of the alimentary tract, which is used for the storage of food before digestion. The crop is an anatomical structure in vertebrate animals, such as birds, and invertebrate animals, such as gastropods (snails and slugs), earthworms, leeches, and insects.