Human skeleton

The human skeleton is made of bones, some of them joined together, supported and supplemented by a structure of ligaments, tendons, muscles, and cartilage.

Related Topics:
Bone - Joined - Ligament - Tendon - Muscle - Cartilage

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The skeleton changes composition over a lifespan. Early in gestation, a fetus has no hard skeleton ? bones form gradually during nine months in the womb. When a baby is born it has more bones than it will as an adult. On average, an adult human has 206 bones in their skeleton (the number can vary slightly from individual to individual), but a baby is born with approximately 270. The difference comes from a number of small bones that fuse together during growth. These include the bones in the skull and the spine. The sacrum (the bone at the base of the spine) consists of six bones which are separated at birth but fuse together into a solid structure in later years.

Related Topics:
Skeleton - Gestation - Fetus - Womb - Skull - Spine - Sacrum

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There are 6 bones (three on each side) in the middle ear that articulate only with themselves, and one bone, the hyoid bone, which does not touch any other bones in the body.

Related Topics:
Middle ear - Hyoid

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The longest bone in the body is the femur and the smallest is the stapes bone in the middle ear.

Related Topics:
Femur - Stapes - Middle ear

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