flame cell

American  

noun

Zoology.

1. one of the hollow cells terminating the branches of the excretory tubules of certain invertebrates, having a tuft of continuously moving cilia.

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flame cell British  

noun

1. an organ of excretion in flatworms: a hollow cup-shaped cell containing a bunch of cilia, whose movement draws in waste products and wafts them to the outside through a connecting tubule

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Etymology

Origin of flame cell

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

Rarely the nephridium does not communicate with the coelom; in such cases the nephridium ends in a single cell, like the “flame cell” of a Platyhelminth worm, in which there is a lumen blocked at the coelomic end by a tuft of fine cilia projecting into the lumen.

From Project Gutenberg