Geometric morphometrics of the avian skull related to the presence of the postorbital ligament

AOS Student Research Grant Seminar

Presenter: Samantha Gartner, Assistant Professor, East Stroudsburg University; AOS 2024 Postdoctoral Research Grant winner

Previous work on cranial ligaments in birds has found the postorbital ligament to affect the cranial kinesis of the bird skull. This talk attempts to integrate skeletal shape with the presence or absence of the postorbital ligament. We find no large scale patterns across the bird phylogeny and instead find smaller scale patterns between sister groups, indicating the potential plasticity of the evolution of cranial ligaments.

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