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Wednesday 22 October 2014

Gill slits are, at some stage of life, found in all Chordates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharyngeal_slit

The presence of gill-like slits in the neck of the developing human embryo famously led Ernst Haeckel to postulate that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"; this hypothesis, while false, contains elements of truth, as explored by Stephen Jay Gould in Ontogeny and Phylogeny.[2] However, it is now accepted that it is the vertebrate pharyngeal pouches and not the neck slits that are homologous to the pharyngeal slits of invertebrate chordates. Gill slits are, at some stage of life, found in all chordates.

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