The hypopharyngeal eminence or hypobranchial eminence is a midline swelling of the third and fourth

pharyngeal arch The pharyngeal arches, also known as visceral arches'','' are structures seen in the embryonic development of vertebrates that are recognisable precursors for many structures. In fish, the arches are known as the branchial arches, or gill a ...

es, in the development of the

tongue The tongue is a muscular organ in the mouth of a typical tetrapod. It manipulates food for mastication and swallowing as part of the digestive process, and is the primary organ of taste. The tongue's upper surface (dorsum) is covered by tas ...

. It appears in the fifth and sixth weeks of

embryogenesis An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male sperm ...

. The hypopharyngeal eminence forms mostly from the

endoderm Endoderm is the innermost of the three primary germ layers in the very early embryo. The other two layers are the ectoderm (outside layer) and mesoderm (middle layer). Cells migrating inward along the archenteron form the inner layer of the g ...

of the third pharyngeal arch and only partially from the fourth pharyngeal arch. It quickly grows to cover the copula formed earlier from the second pharyngeal arch, and will form the posterior one third of the tongue.

References

Embryology Human head and neck {{developmental-biology-stub