Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a powerful new high resolution imaging modality which can provide new insight into normal and abnormal cardiac development in animal models. Here we demonstrate for the first time the application of OCT for three-dimensional imaging of the developing cardiovascular system of the chick embryo. Using this three-dimensional data we compared cross-sectional OCT images with histological cross-sections and we generated volumetric reconstructions of the early heart tube.