The Palatal Interpterygoid Vacuities of Temnospondyls and the Implications for the Associated Eye‐ and Jaw Musculature

ABSTRACT A diagnostic feature of temnospondyls is the presence of an open palate with large interpterygoid vacuities, unlike the closed palate of most other early tetrapods, in which the vacuities are either slit‐like or completely absent. Attachment sites on neurocranium and palatal bones in temnospondyls allow the reconstruction of a powerful m. retractor bulbi and a large, sheet‐like m. levator bulbi that formed the elastic floor of the orbit. This muscle arrangement indicates that temnospondyls were able to retract the eyeballs through the interpterygoid vacuities into the buccal cavity, like extant frogs and salamanders. In contrast, attachment sites on palate and neurocranium suggest a rather sauropsid‐like arrangement of these muscles in stem‐tetrapods and stem‐amniotes. However, the anteriorly enlarged, huge interpterygoid vacuities of long‐snouted stereospondyls suggest that eye retraction was not the only function of the vacuities here, since the eye‐muscles filled only the posterior part of the vacuities. We propose an association of the vacuities in temnospondyls with a long, preorbital part of the m. adductor mandibulae internus (AMIa). The trochlea‐like, anterior edge of the adductor chamber suggests that a tendon of the AMIa was redirected in an anteromedial direction in the preorbital skull and dorsal to the pterygoids. This tendon then unfolded into a wide aponeurosis bearing the flattened AMIa that filled almost the complete interpterygoid vacuities anterior to the orbits. Our muscle reconstructions permit comprehensive insights to the comparative soft tissue anatomy of early tetrapods and provide the basis for a biomechanic analysis of biting performances in the future. Anat Rec, 300:1240–1269, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.