ABSTRACT
The compass-rotular ligaments (CRLs) consists of a very dense, sparsely cellular crossed fibre array of connective tissue fibres which surrounds the distal hook of the compass and connects it to the distal end of the rotula. The CRL consists of a very dense, sparsely cellular crossed fibre array of connective tissue fibres which surrounds the distal hook of the compass and connects it to the distal end of the rotula. Paired pharyngeal levator muscles insert into the oral edge of each CRL and may be linked to it functionally, although if the levator muscles are pulled down the compass does not move. The ligament thus shows a pattern of responses to chemical agents which suggests that its mechanical properties are under neural control, i.e. that it consists of mutable collagenous tiss.
