tympanic ring

A C-shaped membranous bone that provides physical support to the tympanic membrane. The tympanic ring develops sequentially from an initial primordium in the first branchial arch growing in a circumferential fashion around the first pharyngeal cleft into the second branchial arch (Mallo and Gridley, 1996). In most mammals, the tympanic ring exists only during embryonic life, when it coordinates proper development and positioning of the eardrum (see below), and then becomes integrated into the temporal bone[PMID].