How it works
This taste bud diagram has two views. One enlarges a single bud as a taste bud cell diagram. The other cuts a vallate papilla of the tongue straight down to show where the buds sit.
Read the full guide
Inside one taste bud
A bud is a barrel of long cells set in the epithelium. The gustatory cells are the receptors; supporting cells wrap and separate them. Each gustatory cell ends in gustatory hairs that reach into the taste pore, where food dissolved in saliva meets them. Sensory nerve fibers enter at the base.
Where the buds sit
The second view is a vallate papilla, one of the large papillae at the back of the tongue. Its buds line the walls of the moat round it, and von Ebner’s glands open into the floor of the moat.
- Gustatory and taste mean the same thing; the tool takes either word.
Questions and answers
What are the parts of a taste bud?
Gustatory (taste receptor) cells, the supporting cells round and between them, the gustatory hairs on the tips of the gustatory cells, the taste pore the hairs reach into, and the sensory nerve fibers that enter the base of the bud.
What is the taste pore?
A small opening in the epithelium of the tongue, over the tip of each taste bud. Food dissolved in saliva enters it and touches the gustatory hairs.
Where are taste buds found?
Mostly in the papillae of the tongue, though not the thread-like filiform ones. They are also found on the soft palate, the epiglottis and the throat.
Is this the key to “correctly label the anatomical elements of the taste bud”?
That sentence is a publisher’s labeling activity. This page shows the same parts on a drawing of our own, so the layout differs, but the names are the standard ones.