Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Situated behind the socket of the eye: a postorbital bone.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In anatomy and zoology: Situated on the hinder part of the bony brim of the orbit of the eye. Since the frontal bone usually circumscribes more than half of this orbit, a postorbital process is usually also a postfrontal process. This process, when formed of the frontal bone, varies much in size and shape, and may be present or absent in the skulls of animals closely related, therefore furnishing a useful zoölogical character. Compare, for example, the large hooked postorbital process of the skull of the hare, figured under Leporidæ, with the absence of such a formation in the skull of another rodent, the beaver, figured under Castor. In man the corresponding formation is known as the external angular process of the frontal bone.
- Bounding the orbit behind, as a separate bone of sundry reptiles. See the noun.
- Lying backward (caudad) of the orbit of the eye, on the surface of the body; postocular: as, the postorbital part of the head.
- In entomology, lying behind the compound eyes of an insect.
- n. In herpetology, a separate bone which in some reptiles forms a posterior part of the orbit of the eye. Such a bone may come in behind another regarded as a postfrontal (see cut under
Ichthyo-sauria ), and is then unequivocal; but when only one bone, apart from the frontal, bounds the orbit in any part of its posterior half, it may be regarded as either a postfrontal or a postorbital.
Wiktionary
- adj. Behind the orbit of the eye.
- n. A postorbital bone or scale.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Anat. & Zoöl.) Situated behind the orbit.
Examples
“The most obvious difference is the "postorbital processes" of the groundhog skull that are missing in the beaver skull and which are present in mine.”
“Based on the apparently archaic nature of its postorbital bar, Buffetaut (1983) speculated that this animal might be a late-surviving relict form from the Cretaceous.”
“In combination with forward directed postorbital horns and massive fan-shaped frill, cranial epi-ossifications may have enhanced visual display and species communication in Triceratops.”
“Gong et al. (2004) identified prefrontals and a robust postorbital, for example, but the excellent photos they provided show that the 'prefrontals' may just be parts of the nasals”
“A complete postorbital bar is seen elsewhere in Mesozoic birds: confuciusornithids and the enantiornithine”
“Both the parapithecids and extinct and extant platyrrhines show extensive postorbital closure, which is not found in primates from North America (Fleagle and Kay, 1997).”
“The smallest epiparietals, episquamosals and postorbital horns reveal the youngest histological tissues.”
“(G) VRD 13, the erosional surface (white arrows) points to continued modification in size and shape of this postorbital nodal ornament.”
“A line drawn from the postorbital protuberance of the malar to the nearest point of the zygomatic process of the squamosal, may be regarded as the base of the ascend - ing ramus of the latter.”
Internet Archive: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
“J The fact that the postfrontal and postorbital are not distinct from each other in the Dinosauria with which I am acquainted, makes the determination of the character of the supe - rior arch somewhat difiicult.”
Internet Archive: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
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