dictionary help| branchial clefts | medical dictionary |
A bilateral series of slitlike openings into the pharynx through which water is drawn by aquatic animals; in the walls of the cleft's are the vascular gill filaments that take up oxygen from the water passing through the cleft's; sometimes loosely applied to the branchial ectodermal grooves of mammalian embryos, which are imperforate, rudimentary homologues of complete gill clefts.
Synonyms: gill clefts.
(05 Mar 2000)
branchial arches, branchial cartilages, branchial cleft cyst < Prev | Next > branchial cyst, branchial efferent column
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