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Gill slits are gills with individual openings rather than an outer cover. Cartilaginous fish such as shark
Shark

Sharks are a type of fish with a full Cartilage skeleton and a highly Streamlines, streaklines and pathlinesd body. They respire with the use of five to seven gill slits....
s, rays
Batoidea

Batoidea is a superorder of Chondrichthyes containing more than 500 described species in thirteen families. They are commonly known as rays, but that term is also used specifically for batoids in the order Rajiformes, the "true rays"....
, sawfish
Sawfish

Sawfishes are a family of marine animals related to batoidea. Their most striking appearance is a long, toothy snout. They are members of the sole living family Pristidae within the order Pristiformes, from the Greek pristes meaning "a sawyer" or "a saw"....
, and guitarfish
Guitarfish

The guitarfish are a family, Rhinobatidae, of batoidea. The guitarfish are known for an elongated body with a flattened head and trunk and small ray like wings....
 all have gill slits. Most have five pairs, but a few species have 6 or 7 pairs. Bony fish have an outer bony gill covering called an operculum
Operculum (fish)

The operculum of a Osteichthyes is the hard bony flap covering and protecting the gills. In most fish, the rear edge of the operculum roughly marks the division between the head and the body....
.

The term "gill slits" also refers to the folds of skin in all vertebrate
Vertebrate

Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with Vertebras or Vertebral columns. The grouping sometimes includes the hagfish, which have no vertebrae, but are genetically quite closely related to lampreys, which do have vertebrae....
 embryos. The skin fold
Skin fold

Skin folds are areas of skin where it folds. Many skin folds are distinct, heritable anatomical features, and may be used for identification of animal species, while others are non-specific and may be produced either by individual development of an organism or by arbitrary application of force to skin, either by the actions of the muscles of...
s in mammal
Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s, bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s, and reptile
Reptile

Reptiles, or members of the class Reptilia, are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scale as opposed to hair or feathers....
s are gill slits, but the gill slits in embryonic fish develop into gills, while the gill slits in other vertebrates develop into the throat area and the bones in the ear.






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Gill slits are gills with individual openings rather than an outer cover. Cartilaginous fish such as shark
Shark

Sharks are a type of fish with a full Cartilage skeleton and a highly Streamlines, streaklines and pathlinesd body. They respire with the use of five to seven gill slits....
s, rays
Batoidea

Batoidea is a superorder of Chondrichthyes containing more than 500 described species in thirteen families. They are commonly known as rays, but that term is also used specifically for batoids in the order Rajiformes, the "true rays"....
, sawfish
Sawfish

Sawfishes are a family of marine animals related to batoidea. Their most striking appearance is a long, toothy snout. They are members of the sole living family Pristidae within the order Pristiformes, from the Greek pristes meaning "a sawyer" or "a saw"....
, and guitarfish
Guitarfish

The guitarfish are a family, Rhinobatidae, of batoidea. The guitarfish are known for an elongated body with a flattened head and trunk and small ray like wings....
 all have gill slits. Most have five pairs, but a few species have 6 or 7 pairs. Bony fish have an outer bony gill covering called an operculum
Operculum (fish)

The operculum of a Osteichthyes is the hard bony flap covering and protecting the gills. In most fish, the rear edge of the operculum roughly marks the division between the head and the body....
.

The term "gill slits" also refers to the folds of skin in all vertebrate
Vertebrate

Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with Vertebras or Vertebral columns. The grouping sometimes includes the hagfish, which have no vertebrae, but are genetically quite closely related to lampreys, which do have vertebrae....
 embryos. The skin fold
Skin fold

Skin folds are areas of skin where it folds. Many skin folds are distinct, heritable anatomical features, and may be used for identification of animal species, while others are non-specific and may be produced either by individual development of an organism or by arbitrary application of force to skin, either by the actions of the muscles of...
s in mammal
Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s, bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s, and reptile
Reptile

Reptiles, or members of the class Reptilia, are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scale as opposed to hair or feathers....
s are gill slits, but the gill slits in embryonic fish develop into gills, while the gill slits in other vertebrates develop into the throat area and the bones in the ear. Gill slits exist in all vertebrates at some time in their embryo stage. When the vertebrate reaches a certain point in its life the skin folds fuse together and the bones form the trachea and ear bones. Except in fish where they form the gills themselves.

In the 19th century, gill slits of vertebrate embryos were erroneously thought to be actual gills, and thus evidence for the recapitulation theory
Recapitulation theory

The theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism, and often expressed as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, was put forward by ?tienne Serres in 1824?26 as what became known as the "Meckel-Serres Law" which attempted to provide a link between comparative embryology and a "pattern of un...
.