Gill raker
Gill rakers in fish are
The structure and spacing of gill rakers in fish determines the size of food particles trapped, and correlates with feeding behavior. Fish with densely spaced, elongated, comb-like gill rakers are efficient at filtering tiny prey, whereas carnivores and omnivores often have more widely spaced gill rakers with secondary projections. Because gill raker characters often vary between closely related taxa, they are commonly used in the classification and identification of fish species. Much of the variation in gill raker morphology is thought to be due to adaptation to optimize the consumption of different diets.
To prevent the potentially damaging passage of solid material through the gill slits and over the gill filaments, early gill rakers strained large particles from the water and diverted them to the
References
- ^ "Respiratory system". 203.250.122.194.
- ^ Salman, Nadir A.; Al-Mahdawi, Ghaith J. and Hassan; Heba, M.A. (2005). "Gill Rakers Morphometry and Filtering Mechanism in some Marine Teleosts from Red Sea Coasts of Yemen" (PDF). Egyptian Journal of Aquatic Research. 31 (Special Issue): 286–296. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 20, 2012. Retrieved 2 March 2013.