fossa
IPA: fˈɑsʌ
noun
- (anatomy) A pit, groove, cavity, or depression.
- (astronomy) A long, narrow, shallow depression on the body of an extraterrestrial body, such as a planet or moon.
- A large nocturnal reddish-brown catlike mammal (Cryptoprocta ferox) of the civet family, endemic to the rainforests of Madagascar. It is slender, long-tailed and has retractile claws and anal scent glands.
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Examples of "fossa" in Sentences
- Response to David: some books say that fossa is pronounced 'foosh', which would agree with your comment.
- Dorian - a "fossa" - looks to us like a cross between a dog, a cat, a bat and a gerbil - or maybe a bear.
- Similarly, the fossa is related to more familiar cats through the suborder Feliformia, but lie in a different family (Eupleridae) than the lions, tigers and housecats we’re familiar with (Felidae).
- On the outside of the rectal wall, at the terminal portion, there is also much loose, fatty (areolar) tissue filling the ischio-rectal fossa, which is very prone to suppuration, and inflammation here is called periproctitis.
- And the presence of the glands in this location might explain another unusual aspect of metriorhynchid cranial anatomy, namely the strange elongate, groove-like antorbital fossae present in these animals (the antorbital fossa is an accessory opening present on the side of the skull in archosaurs).
- At the upper part of the fossa is a transverse depression, where the bone appears to be bent on itself along a line at right angles to and passing through the center of the glenoid cavity, forming a considerable angle, called the subscapular angle; this gives greater strength to the body of the bone by its arched form, while the summit of the arch serves to support the spine and acromion.
- On the floor of the fossa are the popliteal vessels, the vein being superficial to the artery and united to it by dense areolar tissue; the vein is a thick-walled vessel, and lies at first lateral to the artery, and then crosses it posteriorly to gain its medial side below; sometimes it is double, the artery lying between the two veins, which are usually connected by short transverse branches.
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