metapterygoidn.
/mɛtə(p)ˈtɛrᵻɡɔɪd/, U.S. /ˌmɛdə(p)ˈtɛrəˌɡɔɪd/ Ichthyology.
A bone of the skull of a teleostean fish, located posterior to the pterygoid.
ΚΠ
1859 T. H. Huxley in Proc. Royal Soc. 9 410 It seems to me to be an essentially piscine bone, to be regarded either as a dismemberment of the quadratum or of the pterygoid. It may be termed the ‘metapterygoid’.
1871 Amer. Naturalist 5 583 In the eels of several families both it and the metapterygoid are wanting.
1880 A. Günther Introd. Study of Fishes iii. 55 The next bone of the series is the pretympanic or metapterygoid, a flat bone forming a bridge towards the pterygoid.
1962 K. F. Lagler et al. Ichthyol. iii. 66 Cartilage-bone constituents of the upper-jaw mechanism are the palatines, quadrates, and metapterygoids.
1990 Jrnl. Morphol. 205 193 The metapterygoid arises as an anterior ossification of the pars pterygoquadrata in siluroids.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1859