Rabbit : Atlas

• It is the first cervical vertebrae.

• It is almost ring shaped without a proper centrum.

• Centrum separates from it early in development and becomes the odontoid process of the axis.

• Neural spine is very much reduced.

• Transverse processes are flat.

• At the base of each of them is a vertebrarterial foramen for the passage of vertebral artery.

• Pre – zygapophyses are absent.

• Neural canal is partitioned into upper spinal and lower odontoid canal by a transverse ligament.