“…The role of different cell types in marine fish gill epithelia has been established and cell distribution has been clearly defined (Foskett et al, 1981;Perry & Laurent, 1993). The physiological functions of the gill cells of freshwater fish, however, appear to be more complex (Evans, 1984;Perry & Wood, 1985;Avella et al, 1987;Perry & Laurent, 1989, 1993Brown, 1992;Goss et al, 1992aGoss et al, , b, 1994. Freshwater environments vary from almost distilled to high ion concentration waters and, therefore, the epithelial gill cell types in freshwater fish show morphological and functional adaptations that allow the species to live in such environments.…”