Prefrontal bone

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The prefrontal bone is a bone separating the lacrimal and frontal bones in many tetrapod skulls. It first evolved in the sarcopterygian clade Rhipidistia, which includes lungfish and the Tetrapodomorpha.[1] The prefrontal is found in most modern and extinct lungfish, amphibians and reptiles. It is very small, fused to the frontals or lost in many groups of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs and is completely absent in their modern descendants, the birds. The prefrontal was also lost in early mammaliaforms and so is not present in modern mammals either.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Cloutier, Richard; & Ahlberg, Per E. (1996). "Morphology, characters, and the interrelationships of basal sarcopterygians", in Stiassny, Melanie L.J.; Parenti, Lynn R.; & Johnson, G. David (eds.): Interrelationships of Fishes. San Diego: Academic Press, 445-479. ISBN 978-0126709513. 
  2. ^ Mammaliformes. Palaeos: The Trace of Life on Earth. Retrieved on 2008-01-25.
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