| Irregular bone | |
|---|---|
 Sphenoid bone, one of the most complex bones of the human body, is classified as irregular bone. | |
 Irregular bones inhuman skeleton. (shown in red). | |
| Details | |
| Identifiers | |
| Latin | os irregulare |
| TA98 | A02.0.00.014 |
| TA2 | 372 |
| FMA | 7477 |
| Anatomical terms of bone | |
Theirregular bones are bones which, from their peculiar form, cannot be grouped aslong,short,flat orsesamoid bones. Irregular bones serve various purposes in the body, such as protection of nervous tissue (such as thevertebrae protect thespinal cord), affording multiple anchor points forskeletal muscle attachment (as with thesacrum), and maintainingpharynx andtrachea support, andtongue attachment (such as thehyoid bone). They consist ofcancellous tissue enclosed within a thin layer ofcompact bone. Irregular bones can also be used for joining all parts of the spinal column together. The spine is the place in the human body where the most irregular bones can be found. There are, in all, 33 irregular bones found here.
The irregular bones are: thevertebrae,sacrum,coccyx,temporal,sphenoid,ethmoid,zygomatic,maxilla,mandible,palatine,inferior nasal concha, andhyoid.
This article incorporates text in thepublic domain frompage 80 of the 20th edition ofGray's Anatomy(1918)
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