endostyle

[en-duh-stahyl]

noun

Anatomy.

1. a ciliated groove or pair of grooves in the pharynx of various lower chordates, as tunicates, cephalochordates, and larval cyclostomes, serving to accumulate food particles and pass them along the digestive tract.

Word History and Origins

Origin of endostyle¹

1850–55; endo- + -style ¹; so called because the groove is said to resemble a hollow rod from certain viewing angles

Example Sentences

As in amphioxus, the pharynx of Saccoglossus is heavily ciliated44, 45, and cells of the pharyngeal walls in hemichordates and the ventral endostyle in amphioxus secrete abundant mucins and glycoproteins46.

Read more on Nature

The thyroid is, in fact, in this stage in a condition corresponding exactly with the endostyle of Amphioxus.

Read more on Project Gutenberg

Huxley shewed that it possessed all the characteristic features of the Ascidians, the same arrangement of organs, the same kind of nervous system, a respiratory chamber formed from the fore part of the alimentary canal, and a peculiar organ running along the pharynx which Huxley called the endostyle and which is one of the most striking peculiarities of the whole group.

Read more on Project Gutenberg