Basioccipital
Open-knowledge reference entry
The basioccipital is a bone present in the posterior region of the skull in vertebrates. It encloses the ventral margin of the foramen magnum. It is a part of the chondrocranium.
Evolution
Unlike most of the skull, the basioccipital develops from somites, which otherwise develop into the vertebrae. This has led to the hypothesis that the basioccipital has its evolutionary origin as a modified vertebra. However, this hypothesis has been contested on the basis of embryonic evidence in actinopterygian fishes.
The basioccipital is present in basal amniotes, where it forms the majority of the occipital condyle. This is the role it takes in most modern and fossil sauropsids.
In humans, the basioccipital fuses with the supraocipitals and the exoccipitals to form the basilar part of the occipital bone.
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This entry incorporates text from “Basioccipital” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.