noun

• The primary skull of vertebrates, composed of cartilage, which in humans and most other vertebrates is replaced by bone during development.

  ‘The taenia tecti medialis, a bar of cartilage on the dorsomedial surface of the chondrocranium that bisects the parietal portion of the frontoparietal fontanelle, evolved in the common ancestor to neobatrachians.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘In bony vertebrates, endochondral bones form from centers of ossification in the chondrocranium, although much of the braincase often remains cartilage.’
  • ‘The epaxial muscles insert on the posterior aspect of the chondrocranium, which later ossifies into the exoccipitals and supraoccipital of the skull.’
  • ‘As with all crocodyliforms, the chondrocranium is invested with a series of internal recesses that presumably communicated with the pharynx in life.’
  • ‘The skulls of Devonian lungfish have a tessera of small superficial bones, fused to an ossified chondrocranium.’