visceral cleft Hear it!

visceral cleft definition

visceral cleft

any of a series of paired openings leading from the pharynx to the ectoderm on each side of the neck area in a chordate embryo: in fish and some amphibians the clefts develop into gill slits, but in land vertebrates they are either lost or transformed into other structures

Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2005 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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