The head bone's connect to the...

Hello everyone,

I've been memorizing bones. I never learned the proper names of them so it's a slow process. I'm lucky though that Jerry is a willing assistant lol.

Bones are classified lots of different ways. For study purposes, I'm working on axial bones and apendicular bones. Axial bones are the ones found in your head and main torso. Apendicular bones are found in your arms and legs. This is to help me study and I'm still working on proper spelling.

Apendicular bones:

Starting at the pectoral girdle.
The pectoral girdle consists of the clavical (collar bone) and the scapula (shoulder blade). The clavical attaches to the sternum at the front and the scapula at the back. Clavicals are also more prominent in males than females. Jerry's looks funny because he broke his right clavical and instead of being straight, it goes straight and then disappears. The broken piece goes into his body rather than continuing near the surface across.

From the pectoral girdle,
The humerus is the long bone at the top. There is no elbow bone (or funny bone ha ha! although that's why I remember the humerus). In your lower arm you have the ulna and the radial. The ulna is larger and is found on your pinky finger side. This can be remembered by "pull my finger" PU! Next are your wrist bones, the carpals. They are "short" bones and I think there are 8 of them. They fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Next are 5 metacarpals. Then 14 phalanges. These are the bones in your fingers (3 on each finger) and thumb (2).

Now down to the pelvic girdle.
The pelvic cradle has 5 bones but I don't remember them all yet. There are two large ones on each side and then the pubus bone in the middle.

The leg is connected to the pelvic girdle through a ball and socket joint. The femur is the largest bone in the body. Next is the patella (knee). The lower body has two bones, which I was not aware of until the weekend. The large bone is called the tibia (your shin) and the smaller one is the fibula. Your ankles and feet are similar to your wrists and hands, The ankle bones are called the tarsus. Next are the 5 metatarsus and then you have 14 phalanges.

Ok, onto the axial bones. The skull has a whole bunch of bones that I don't know yet. Anyways, the spine...

The spine consists of vertebrae, which are classified as "irregular" shaped bones. Starting from the top:
Cervical 7 - the top one is called Atlas and the next one is called Axis. These are the smallest and weakest vertebrae.
Thoracic 12 - they are attached to the ribs
Lumbar 5 - they are the largest of the unfused vertebrae
Sacrum 5 - they are fused
Cocyx 4 - they are also fused (the tail bone)

Heading to the ribs. There are 7 true ribs, 3 false ribs and 2 floating ribs. The top ribs (true) are attached directly to the sternum via cartilage. The next 3 are also connected but the cartilage from each rib meet and then join up rather than connecting directly. The floating ribs do not connect at all.

So, I'm missing the bones of the sternum, the skull and the pelvic girdle. But, I did all this from memory and I'll need to keep practising while walking to work. And I haven't learned the individual names of the carpals and the tarsus yet.

I hope you enjoyed your anatomy class. And if you are like me, you were wiggling your body or feeling around when I was going through it all. It's rather interesting.

Have a great day!