A bone separating the lacrimal and frontal bones in many tetrapod skulls. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_bone ]
Term information
- Wikipedia:Prefrontal_bone
- AAO:0000460
http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/NCBITaxon_40674
http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/NCBITaxon_8782
It first evolved in the sarcopterygian clade Rhipidistia, which includes lungfish and the Tetrapodomorpha. 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
Term relations
- dermal bone
- facial bone
- in taxon some Sarcopterygii
- in taxon some (not Mammalia)
- overlaps some orbit of skull
- part of some facial skeleton
- adjacent to some tetrapod frontal bone
- in taxon some (not Aves)
- adjacent to some lacrimal bone
- part of some dermatocranium