While the common ancestor of vertebrates with synovial joints is still a mystery, the oldest specimen with evidence of these ...

A fossil analysis suggests that the yunnanozoan, a wormlike fish that flourished around 520 million years ago, sported structures that were the precursors of the head and jaws of modern vertebrates.

A University of Bristol study has shed light on how lizards and snakes—the most diverse group of land vertebrates with nearly 12,000 species—have evolved remarkably varied jaw shapes ...

Cerny, R, Cattell, M, Sauka-Spengler, T, Fraser, M, Yu, F, Meulemans Medeiros, D. (2010) Evidence for the prepattern/cooption model of vertebrate jaw evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of ...

Snapping turtle - Otic notch at back of skull allows anterior expansion of jaw muscles. ‘Modified anapsid’ condition increases power of bite. Holes arose in dermal roof, muscles pass through roof to ...

Although many of these features were present in ancestral jawless vertebrates, others—such as jaws and the sympathetic ...

The hyomandibular became an ear ossicle and is known in tetrapods except mammals as the columella. In early vertebrates, jaws articulated at the articular (lower) and quadrate (upper) bones. In early ...

The face is one of the most distinctive features of vertebrates, diverged widely among ... separate from the jaws, and this has increased the complexity of their faces compared to those of reptiles.

Their teeth are not set in sockets like those of other vertebrates but rather loosely and flexibly attached by tendons to their jaws. If they didn't replace teeth continuously—up to 50,000 in a ...

Teaching Assistant (Life Science, Principles of Biology I and II, and Form Feeds Function in Vertebrate Evolution); Experience with ... biomechanics and muscle physiology of jaw and tongue movements ...

This is a photograph and interpretive drawing of the lower jaw, as well as a complete tooth, of one of the small ornithopods described in the study. Human (in gray) for scale. Disclaimer ...