Malleus is a fossilized late-Devonian hammer-shaped central ear bone, used historically in anatomy to denote the malleus, hammer of the inner ear. In biology, it refers to the malleus bone, which transmits sound vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear; in anatomy and paleontology contexts it appears as the anatomical term and in discussions of phylogenetic ear ossicles. The term comes from Latin malleus, meaning “hammer.”
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