Ploughshare

Base of the cat's skull (ploughshare blue, choanen bordered with a dashed line)

The ploughshare ( vomer ) is an unpaired, elongated bone at the base of the skull . It belongs to the facial skull and extends centrally from the sphenoid bone ( os sphenoidale ) into the nasal cavity , where it is attached to a ridge ( crista nasalis ) of the upper jawbone ( maxilla ). In mammals, the vomer divides the choan opening . The German name is derived from the similarity with a ploughshare .

The upper side of the vomer has a groove ( sulcus vomeris ) to accommodate the cartilaginous nasal septum ( septum nasi ). The rear end of the vomer carries a wing-like side plate ( Ala vomeris ) on both sides , which connects to the sphenoid bone and the palatine bone .

In birds , the ploughshare is often only rudimentary (stunted).

In the case of salmon fish , the different toothing of the plate and handle of the ploughshare allows precise species identification.

Ploughshare with teeth in salmonids

literature

• Franz-Viktor Salomon: Bony skeleton . In: Franz-Viktor Salomon u. a. (Ed.): Anatomy for veterinary medicine . 3. Edition. Enke, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-8304-1288-5 , pp. 98 .

Web links

Commons : Ploughshare  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Federative Committee on Anatomical Terminology (FCAT) (1998). Terminologia Anatomica . Stuttgart: Thieme