Furcula
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the springtail appendage, see Furcula (Collembola).
The furcula ("little fork" in Latin) is a forked bone found in birds and some theropod dinosaur species, formed by the fusion of the two clavicles . It first appears in the fossil record in the archosaur Longisquama[1]. In birds, its function is the strengthening of the thoracic skeleton to withstand the rigors of flight.
The furcula is commonly referred to as a wishbone because of the tradition that when two people hold the two sides of the bone and pull it apart, the one who gets the larger part will have a wish granted.
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