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