Anatomical Features Of Bones And Bony Cavities Of The Ostrich Skull (struthio Camelus)

ABSTRACT

Background: The morphology of ostrich skeleton was meager rather than fowl for which already a lot of literatureis available. This work attempts to present different views of skull bones of ostrich.Materials and Methods: The present research was carried out on ten heads of adult ostriches. The obtainedheads were collected from different ostrich slaughtered houses at Alexandria. The preparations of bones wereperformed by maceration technique. Two head was radiographed at Surgery Department, Faculty of VeterinaryMedicine, Zagazig University.Results: Ostrich skull consists of two parts; neurocranium and splanchnocranium which are separated by twolarge orbital cavities. Neurocranium is composed of single bones (occipital, sphenoid, ethmoidal) and paired(temporal, parietal and frontal) bones. The splanchnocranium consists of single bones (mandible, vomer andhyoid bones) and paired (quadrate, lacrimal, nasal bone, premaxilla, maxilla, Zygomatic (jugal), palatine boneand pterygoid) bones.Conclusion: A significant result was obtained in this work that, there are variations in shape and components ofostrich skull bones in comparison with other birds. The similarity to small domestic birds was almost near toduck and geese rather than fowl and pigeon skulls. Also, there are some variations with large birds like an emu.