![]() ![]() These models can be analysed (in silico) to test specific biomechanical hypotheses under specified loading conditions. Advances in computing-power have also facilitated an increase in the number of three-dimensional computer-based models. These studies have led to suggestions that the chondrocranium may provide structural support or serve to dampen external loads. However, there have been examinations of chondrocranium histology, in vivo strain, and impact on rostrum growth following partial removal of the chondrocranium. To what extent this variation relates to differences in skull biomechanics is poorly understood. In mammals, birds, and some bony fish, most of the chondrocranium is replaced by bone whereas in lizards, amphibians, and chondrichthyan fish it may remain a significant part of the braincase complex in adulthood. Among jawed vertebrates it varies greatly in structure, mineralisation, and in the extent to which it is replaced by bone during development. Witter from Harvard University described Edops in more detail from additional fossil material in 1942.The chondrocranium is the cartilage component of the vertebrate braincase. The American paleontologist Alfred Sherwood Romer named Edops "swollen face" (from Greek oidos "swelling" and Greek ops "face") in 1936, noting that the "premaxillaries are greatly thickened and produced externally into rounded swellings (whence the generic name)." (The Latinized spelling " edo" for " oidos" resembles the Latin word edo meaning a glutton, but this is not the formal etymology.) In a 1943 popular article, Romer explained that the original fossil find was nicknamed "Grandpa Bumps" for the lumps of bone, which had survived while the rest of the first skull had been largely destroyed. Fragmentary remains from the Viséan of Scotland appear to come from Edops or a close relative and hence predate the type Edops material of the Permian. Within the clade, the most basal member seems to be Edops from the Early Permian Archer City Formation of the US, a broad-skulled animal with large palatal teeth.Įdops was fairly big, at 2 metres (6.6 ft) in length. Edopoids also had particularly big premaxillae (the bones that form the tip of the snout) and proportionally small external nostrils. Unlike more advanced temnospondyls of the time, such as Eryops, Edops exhibited an archaic pattern of palatal bones, and still possessed various additional bones at the back of the skull. Edops ('swollen face') is an extinct genus of temnospondyl amphibian from the Early Permian Period. ![]()
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