Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The upper posterior bone of the series of bones forming the gill-cover in fishes.
- Of or pertaining to an operculum or opercle.
- Having an operculum; fitted with or closed by an operculum; operculate.
- one bounding the operculum below and more or less behind: the suboperculum
- one between the suboperculum and the operculum on the one hand and the preoperculum in front: the interoperculum, which is connected by a ligament with the lower jaw; and
- an entirely separate element in front of the operculum and connected with the suspensorium of the lower jaw: the preoperculum. The first, second, and fourth of these are united into a more or less movable lid which covers the gills. All four are developed in the typical teleosts, but one or more are wanting in some fishes. See cut under
teleost .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of, pertaining to, or like, an operculum.
- noun (Anat.) The principal opercular bone or operculum of fishes.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of or pertaining to the
operculum . - noun anatomy The principal opercular
bone oroperculum offishes .
Etymologies
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Examples
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Tiktaalik is transitional in the evolutionary shift from the pharyngeal and opercular pumps employed by fish to the buccal and costal pumping mechanisms of tetrapods.
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Again, with reference to the homology of the ossicles of the ear with the opercular bones in fish, "employing other resources equally hidden and rudimentary, Nature makes profitable use of the four tiny ossicles lodged in the auditory passage, and, raising them in fish to the greatest possible dimensions, forms from them these broad opercula ...." (p. 85).
Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology
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Vertebrates, the skeleton of the prothorax to the bones of the cerebellum, of the palate, and the pieces of the larynx, the skeleton of the mesothorax to the parietals, interparietals, and opercular bones, and that of the metathorax to the skeleton of the thorax of Vertebrates.
Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology
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The first memoir deals with the homologies of the opercular bones.
Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology
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From the hinder edge of the hyoid arch grows out the membranous operculum, in which develop later the opercular bones and branchiostegal rays.
Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology
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Or you may take it the other way about, and start from the organisation of fishes; opercular bones are of no use to air-breathing animals, so they dwindle away, and are pressed into the service of the ear, although they are of little use in hearing (p. 46).
Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology
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We may compare the similar thought that the ear ossicles are simply opercular bones reduced and turned to other uses.
Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology
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The opercular valves of cirripedes are those which close the aperture of the shell.
Glossary of the Principal Scientific Terms Used in the Present Volume 1909
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As in the other case the skin and opercular membranes were distended by liquid beneath them.
Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897
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A number of the thyroid-fed were dying, and the skin and opercular membranes were swollen out away from the tissues beneath.
Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897
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