A skeleton or skeleton consists of a skull, a spine and chest and of course the limbs. What kind of news is there to discover about it?
The skeleton
A skeleton or framework consists of:
- The skull
- The spine
- The chest
- The limbs
The skull
You can find everything about the skull here, my article about the skull
The spine
The spine runs through the torso of humans and / or animals. It consists of vertebrae with intervertebral discs. These intervertebral discs are made of fibrous cartilage.
The spinal cord runs through the spinal column. The spinal cord is part of the nervous system and helps to transport signals from the brain to the different parts of the body and vice versa.
The chest
The chest or thorax consists of the sternum and ribs. The sternum is a flat piece of bone that lies just under the skin and connects a number of ribs at the front. The ribs lie in pairs in the chest.
The number of ribs differs per animal species. Both the dog and the cat have 13 pairs of ribs, 10 pairs of which are connected to the sternum. The connection to the sternum is a cartilage connection. The cartilage is smoother than the rib bone and allows the chest to enlarge when inhaled. At the back, the ribs are attached to the thoracic vertebrae
The limbs
The limbs are made up of different bones. For example, a dog’s front leg consists of a shoulder blade, a leg and a foot.
Shoulder blade
In animals, the shoulder blade is not attached to the bones of the chest, as in humans. The scapula floats and is held in place by muscles. Animals don’t really have a collarbone like humans. In an animal, the collarbone consists of a strip of cartilage in the shoulder muscle that really serves no purpose.
The shoulder blade is also called Scapula and is a flat bone. Because animals do not have a collarbone, the shoulder blade is limited in its movement. In most animals the front leg can only be bent from front to back and not, as in humans, to the side. Because the shoulder joint is embedded between many muscles, the freedom of movement of the joint is also limited.
Front paw
A dog’s front leg further consists of a humerus or Humerus, which opens into the shoulder joint and is connected to the forearm through the elbow joint.
The forearm, which is connected to the upper arm by means of the elbow joint, consists of a radius and an ulna. Another word for radius is Radius. Another word for ulna is Ulna.
The Radius and Ulna are attached to each other with a connective tissue membrane. They are connected in the wrist with two rows of carpal bones (8 pieces in total). These legs form the wrist joint or Carpus. In animals, the forelegs look slightly different from our arms. After the wrist joint, an animal has a forefoot and a rear foot, where the human has a hand.
The foot of an animal consists of elongated bones that are connected with bands. These are called the metatarsal bones. There are anterior metatarsal bones (ossa metacarpalia) and posterior metatarsal bones (ossa metatarsalia)
The amount of toes and phalanges differs per animal species. The dog and cat have four functional toes and a thumb on the forefoot. Some dog species also have a thumb on their hind feet, but most don’t. A thumb on the hindfoot is called a dewclaw in dogs. In some breeds there are two dewclaws per foot, which is called a dewclaw. Dogs and cats walk on the last two toes.
In horses, the toes look very different. After all, a horse has a hoof and no toes. A horse walks on the last phalange of the middle toe. This is much larger than in other animal species. The other toes are only slightly present.
The same applies to re-members, but they walk on two toes. Instead of calling this hoofing, it is also called claws.
Source: Public domain, Wikimedia Commons (PD)
Hind leg
The hind leg of an animal is very similar to the front leg. It has different parts, such as the pelvic girdle, the upper leg, the lower leg and the foot. The upper leg is called the thigh or femur in the hind leg. This is largely in the hull. Instead of an elbow joint, there is a knee joint that connects the femur to the fibula. The lower leg consists of a shin or tibia and a fibula or fibula.
Pelvic girdle
The pelvic girdle consists of two hip bones, the sacrum and the caudal vertebrae. These together form a ring. The sacrum is also called the sacrum. The sacrum is connected to the hip bones by two immobile joints on the back of the animal. The hip bones are connected at the front by cartilage or the symphysis.
Knee
There is a cartilage construction in the knee that fits the knee joint. This construction is called meniscus. It is shaped like a half moon. It has a shock absorbing and stabilizing effect. Each knee contains two that together form a ring. In this ring lie two crossed ligaments that connect the femur to the shin. We call these ligaments the anterior and posterior cruciate ligament. Having cross straps prevents the thigh from sliding in relation to the lower leg. The knee has collateral bands against side bending. These are the thigh shin band and the thigh fibula band
Only
The ankle joint, just like the wrist joint, has several bones. The heel bone protrudes at the ankle joint. The Achilles tendon runs over the heel bone
