Developmental stages of the chondrocranium in some selachians

Abstract Serial sections of seven embryos were examined, in four of which the chondrocrania were reconstructed. Parachordals appear as independent precartilages on each side of the notochord in the otic region. Later chondrification occurs, and they fuse with the notochord. Orbitals and trabeculae appear as independent precartilages; later, as cartilages they fuse with the basal plate and with each other, forming the cranial wall between the orbital cavity and brain. An apparent shifting posteriorly of the bases of the fifth, seventh, and eighth cranial nerves, in respect to the anterior end of the notochord and to the otic vesicles, occurs between the 10‐mm. and the 60‐mm. stages. The otic vesicles, proportionately small in the 10‐mm. stage, reach their relatively largest size in the 19‐mm. embryo. The floors of the otic capsules begin as lateral extensions of the basal plate at the 25‐mm. stage, and from these anlagen chondrifications extend, forming the anterior and posuerior cupolas. Most of the tegmen cranii forms by chondrifications that approach the median plane from each side. It is practically complete in the 60‐mm. embryo. The cervical neural arches also contribute in forming the tegmen cranii and the occipital region. The ventrally recurved end of the notochord of the 10‐mm. stage persists through the 60‐mm. embryo.