Illustration of three random fates of a (blue) crypt #stemcell. The first one is almost immediately unlucky and pushed out by a neighbouring stem cell. The second and third do better. The latter eventually even overtakes the entire crypt. But all by chance: Neutral competition

an image providing the various cell types of the small intestinal epithelium. Note that enteroendocrine cells come in many flavours. The crypt base columnar cell was first described -and proposed to be the stem cell- by Hazel Chang and J.P. Leblond. More about the latter later