Bones of the Skeleton (UPDATED)

In this video, we're going to learn the bones of the body with help from my new skeleton, Morty. Hey Morty, what are you doing in the corner like that, buddy? I've never been on camera before. I mean, you just unboxed me last week. Hey, it's okay, it's okay. You got this. I mean, you were made for this. That's literally why they make skeleton models, for people to learn anatomy. Are you sure? You think I can do it? Yeah, of course. I mean, all you have to do is stand there while I point out all the bones. Piece of cake. That's true. Okay, let's do this. Awesome. We're all ready. I hope you're ready too. Let's jump to the whiteboard and get started. By the way, I have a free study guide that accompanies this video. There's a link in the description in the pinned comment. It has all the notes as well as practice activities, if you're trying to learn this stuff really well. So check that out if that would be helpful. So here's all the bones that we're going to learn, but we're going to start just one bone at a time, like we usually do. And we're going to start with the skull, which of course is not just one bone. The skull is many bones. So let's borrow Morty's skull real quick. I'm not going to do every bone of the skull, but we'll take a look at some of the major ones you can see from the outside. First, we have the frontal bone. That's going to be right in here. And that will be connected to the two parietal bones, which are here on the top of the head. If I flip the skull around to the back, then we have the occipital bone here in the back. And that occipital bone wraps all the way around. And this is where the spinal cord will come out, through what's called the foramen magnum. That's part of the occipital bone right there. We also have the temporal bone on the side. So right here is where your ear would be. And your temporal bone is all of this bone right there. So that's your temporal bone on the side of your head where your ear is. Some of the prominent bones we have on the front, or the face, is going to be one, the maxilla. So we've got the right and the left maxillary bones right there. And then we've got the mandible, or the jawbone down here. And that's the only bone in the skull that is movable. So frontal, parietal on top, occipital on the back, temporal on the side. And then we've got the maxilla right here, and the mandible or jawbone right there. Of course, those aren't all the bones of the skull, but they're just some of the main ones I'm pointing out in this video. Now, just below the skull, we have a bone that's actually not pictured on the diagram called the hyoid bone. So let's take a look on Morty where the hyoid bone is. So if we look under the skull, right in here, we can see that hyoid bone. That's the hyoid right there. It actually kind of sits under the tongue and helps stabilize the tongue with some tongue movements and stuff. So that's the hyoid bone that's behind the mandible and maxilla under the tongue right there. Next, we have the vertebrae of the spine. Of course, the spinal cord will run from the base of the skull and the brain all the way down through there. And it's got all these nerves that branch off of the vertebrae of the spine. And the spine has different regions that we need to know. So we're going to start at the top. And that's the cervical vertebrae. So we have seven cervical vertebrae. Cervical just means circular. And those are going to be all the vertebrae of the neck. We have 12 thoracic vertebrae. We have 12 of those because the thoracic vertebrae are defined as the vertebrae that are attached to ribs. And we have 12 ribs. So cervical and the neck, thoracic that are connected to ribs. And then just below those, we have the lumbar vertebrae. And we have five lumbar vertebrae. Some people remember these numbers of vertebrae by saying we have breakfast at 7, lunch at 12, and then dinner at 5 p.m. So 7, 12, 5. Now between each of the vertebrae of the spine, we have these cartilage discs. These are called intervertebral discs. They're cartilage and they allow our spine to have a little bit of flexibility. So think about whenever you're moving around, we have some flexibility. That's partly because of those intervertebral discs of cartilage between each of the vertebrae of the spine. One interesting difference between the vertebrae and the nerves that branch out of them is that even though we have seven cervical vertebrae, we actually have eight cervical nerves or eight pairs of cervical nerves. We have 12 pairs of thoracic nerves and we have five pair of lumbar nerves. So the cervical is the one that's different. There's an additional pair of cervical nerves when we're comparing it to the numbers of the vertebrae. Now just inferior to the lumbar vertebrae is the sacrum, which is really a bunch of fused vertebrae. You can see there are these little holes throughout there where some nerves branch out of that sacrum. And then just inferior to the sacrum, we have the coccyx, which is your tailbone. So we've got seven cervical vertebrae, 12 thoracic, five lumbar, and then the sacrum and the coccyx below that. Let's take a look at those on Morty here. So here you have the seven cervical vertebrae. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. We've got the 12 thoracic. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. You see those are all connected to the ribs. And then we're going to have five lumbar. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 lumbar. And then we're down to the sacrum and then the coccyx right there. All right, next let's take a look at the ribs. I already said we have 12 ribs and the ribs are going to wrap around and connect to the sternum. You can actually feel a couple parts of your sternum. There's a notch right in here above the sternum between the clavicles, which I haven't labeled yet. You can feel that notch if you feel right there. And then there's this little process that sticks off the bottom of the sternum called the xiphoid process. And if you feel right down in here, you can feel something kind of sticking down off the bottom of your sternum. That's the xiphoid process. Now the ribs actually connect to the sternum through something called the costal cartilage. So I've got this grayed out here because it's not a bone, it's cartilage, but it's an integral part of the skeletal system. So here's the sternum. Here's that notch I was talking about right here. And then here is the process, the xiphoid process sticking down. And we have the costal cartilage right here, which is connecting the ribs to the sternum. Now we can categorize the ribs according to how they connect to the sternum and the costal cartilage. So we have seven true ribs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And those are considered true ribs because they have one piece of costal cartilage that connects each rib to the sternum. We can see all of those right in there. But as soon as you get to rib 8, 9, and 10, their costal cartilage doesn't go all the way up and connect directly to the sternum. Their costal cartilage actually connects to rib number 7's costal cartilage right there. So these three are considered false ribs. We have two more ribs after that. So we have those seven true ribs. We have those three false ribs I pointed out. And there's actually two more false ribs right there and right there because they also don't connect to the sternum. But they're a little different. They actually don't have costal cartilage at all. So we subdivide those into something called floating ribs. So these bottom five ribs, 8 through 12, are all false ribs. But the two last ribs, 11 and 12, are floating ribs as well. But they're still considered false ribs. So seven true ribs, five false ribs, two of which are floating ribs. We can see those on Morty here. We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 true ribs. And then we've got 8, 9, and 10 which are false ribs. And 11 and 12 back in there which are also false ribs. But they're also considered floating ribs. And if we spin Morty around to the back, we can also see that these are all of the thoracic vertebrae that are connected to each of those ribs right there. All right, so everything that we've labeled so far is considered part of the axial skeleton. It's like the axis of the body going vertically right there. So that's the axial skeleton. All of the bones that we have not yet labeled are considered part of the appendicular skeleton. These would be the bones of the arms and legs. And we're going to look at those next. So appendicular skeleton time. So let's zoom in here in our diagram. And we're going to do the shoulder blades next. And those are called the scapulas. And connected to the scapulas are the clavicles. The scapulas, like I said, are your shoulder blades. They connect to the clavicles right there. And the clavicles then articulate with these little notches right there on either side of the sternum. The clavicles are your collarbones. And you can feel your collarbones right in there. If you touch them too much, it starts to feel a little weird to me. So the clavicle and scapula together we call the shoulder girdle. The word girdle there, we have a shoulder girdle and then a pelvic girdle. A girdle just means they're the collection of bones. They're going to form that part of the body that hold the appendage, in this case the arm, sort of in place and articulate with it. Now articulating with the scapula is the humerus or your funny bone. Get it? Humerus. Funny. So in Morty here, we have the scapula. This right here is the spine of the scapula. If I rotate this around right here, we've got the clavicle, which connects to the sternum. And then we've got the humerus. This is the proximal end of the humerus. That's going to be the glenoid fossa of the scapula. And that's where all of your kind of shoulder movement will come from. Of course, the scapula can move around. It's not held exactly in place like that. If you move your shoulders around, this can slide around in this area. The distal end of the humerus will form your elbow joint and that's going to articulate with two bones. One is the radius and then the other is the ulna. Now I've got the radius labeled on here right now. And take a look. The radius in anatomical position is always on the lateral side or to the outside. But the easiest way for me to identify which one's the radius and which one is the ulna is to look at the hand. So if I take the hand and I find the thumb side, it's always the radius that's on the thumb side. Even if I rotate my hand around like this, the radius will rotate with it. So my thumb side, here's the radius. If I rotate it like this, this is still the radius because it's still on my thumb side right there. And then for the ulna, we're just going to look on the pinky side. So the pinky is going to match up with the ulna right there. So pinky side will be the ulna. One way that I remember the radius is if I take my thumb and my thumb can make a circle like this. And a circle has a radius if you know your geometry. So I just remember the thumb makes a circle and the circle has a radius. Now at the wrist joint down here, we have the carpal bones. We've got eight of those carpal bones. If you want to learn those carpal bones, I've got a separate video on the wrist joint that you can take a look at. But we've got eight carpal bones that make up the wrist. And then branching off of those carpal bones, we've got the metacarpals. Those are going to be the long skinny bones that make up most of the hand right here. So those are the metacarpal bones. Carpals and metacarpals. You can feel those metacarpals if you feel the back of your hand there. And then coming off the metacarpals, we have the phalanges of the hand. Now we're also going to have phalanges of the toes. So we've got to specify we're talking about phalanges of the hand. And one individual phalange is not called a phalange, it's called a phalanx. Each finger is going to have three phalanges, a proximal, middle, and distal. Except for your thumb, it's just going to have a proximal and a distal, but no middle phalange, no middle phalanx. And on Morty here, here was that humerus again. And then here we have the radius and the ulna. Let me find the hand. Here's the thumb right here. So this is going to be the radius. Then this over here is going to be the ulna on the pinky side. And of course, whenever we rotate this, that radius will rotate around the ulna. But as long as we're taking a look at where the thumb is, we can identify that radius. Then down right here, we have the carpal bones and then the metacarpals. And then these are all of the phalanges of the hand. So those are all the bones of the arm. Now let's take a look down at the bones of the legs. And we're going to start with the pelvis. So the pelvis makes your hips. And there's really three parts to the pelvis. We have this region right here, which is the ilium. That's the ilium, this kind of big, wide, flat area. If we circle around to the back, this part of the bone right here is called the ischium. The way that I remember that is you set your ischium on your cushion. They both have sh in them. So think ischium and cushion. This would be a bone that's kind of like on your bottom whenever you're sitting down. And if we rotate back to the front here, we've got the pubic bone or the pubic part of the pelvis. That cartilage is called the pubic synthesis. Now at the hip joint, articulating with the pelvis are the femurs. The femur is going to be the bone of the upper leg. It's a really large bone. I think it's considered the largest bone in the body, I think. And at the distal end of the femur, we have our knee. And the knee cap is called the patella. So we've got those two little patella bones right there. And then we've got two bones that are going to come off the bottom of the knee. One is the tibia. The tibia is going to be the bigger bone of the two. And then on the lateral side of the tibia, we have the fibulas. Those are easy to confuse with each other. The way that I initially remember this is when I think of fibula, I think of the word fib, like to tell a lie, you tell a fib. And it's kind of like the tibia is doing all of the work here. And the fibula, it's not really doing anything. It's just this tiny little bone there. It's sort of like fibbing or lying about being an important bone. Now, of course, the fibula is an important bone. But this is the way that I remembered it. And it's stuck in my head. So the fibula is the little bone that's not doing most of the work. And the tibia is what's really pulling its weight. So we've got the pelvis right here, which of course articulates with the sacrum right there. And we've got the femur. There's the ball of the femur or the condyle of the femur to articulate there. Of course, there's metal holding it in place, not in real life, but in the model. That femur will travel all the way down to here. And then we've got the patella or the kneecap. We've got the big bone of the lower leg, which is the tibia. And then we've got the fibula, which is on the lateral side. It's the smaller, skinnier bone. Now, at the distal end of the tibia and the fibula, we have the talus bone. The talus bone is actually one of the tarsal bones, kind of like we had the carpal bones in the wrist. We've got tarsal bones in the foot. But there's two tarsal bones that I am going to name in this video because they're pretty important. The talus there is important because it's the main bone that articulates with the tibia and fibula in the ankle joint. And then you also have your heel bone, which is called the calcaneus. The calcaneus is another tarsal bone. It's your heel bone. It actually kind of sticks off the back of where the ankle is because you've got your gastrocnemius muscle and your calf muscle, which pulls up on it in order to bend the front of the foot downward. I'll show that in a second. Now, in the diagram, I'll label the rest of the tarsals. Again, we've got that talus and calcaneus are tarsals. We've got several more tarsal bones. Check out my ankle video if you want to learn the names of all those tarsal bones. And of course, if we have tarsals, we must have metatarsals. And those would be the main bones of the foot. They're long and skinny, just like the carpal bones of the hand. And then again, we have the phalanges of the foot, which are sticking off the ends of those metatarsals. And those are the bones of your toes. Each toe has three phalanges, proximal, middle, and distal, except for your big toe, which just has a proximal and a distal phalange, phalanx. So here we have the tibia and we've got the fibula right there. We've got the talus bone that articulates with the tibia and the fibula. We've got the calcaneus or heel bone there. We've got the other tarsal bones right there. Then down from there, we've got the metatarsals and then the phalanges of the foot. And then I mentioned this earlier, but we've got the calf muscle that pulls up on the calcaneus. So if you can imagine when that calf muscle pulls up on this heel bone, it moves the front of the foot down like that. So those are the bones of the lower limbs. And now we've covered all of the major bones of the skeleton. In fact, right now, here's a blank skeleton. Pause the video. See if you can identify all of the bones in the skeleton. And here are all the names of those bones back. And now let's take a look at just that axial skeleton with all of the regions of the spine, as well as the different types of ribs and the bones of the skull. And if you want to go ahead and pause the video and see if you can name all of those bones. And here those are back. Now for one last recap, let's go back to Morty and take a full tour of the skeleton. And as I do, you can use the diagram on screen to follow along and name all of those bones along with me. Starting at the top, we have the skull, which has the frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal, the maxilla, and the mandible. Up under the mandible, we've got the hyoid bone. We can see right there. We've got the vertebrae of the spine. We've got seven cervical vertebrae. We've got 12 thoracic vertebrae. We've got five lumbar vertebrae. And then we have the sacrum and the coccyx. You can see all the nerves coming out of the spinal cord inside the spine right there. We've got these ribs, of course, and we have three types of ribs. We've got the seven true ribs coming down to right here. We've got three false ribs right there. And then two more false ribs in the back that we also call floating ribs. Coming back up here, we've got the sternum, which is where the costal cartilage connects from the ribs to that sternum. Making up the shoulder girdle, we've got the clavicle or collarbone. And then back around here, we've got the shoulder blade or the scapula. That's going to articulate at the shoulder joint with the humerus and follow the humerus down. And we've got the elbow joint right there. And we can just find the thumb side. So we've got the thumb side. So this is the radius. This would be the ulna. Then we've got the carpal bones, the metacarpals, and the phalanges of the hand. If we go down here, we've got the pelvic girdle. The pelvic girdle is made up of the pelvis. We've got the ilium, the pubis, and the ischium in the back there. Connected to that pelvis at the hip joint, we have the femur. If we jump over to the detached leg from Morty here, here is the femur. The distal end of the femur, we've got the knee. So here's the kneecap or patella. We've got the tibia, which is the big bone, the shinbone. And we've got the fibula right there. And then down here, we've got the ankle joint, which includes the calcaneus or heel bone. We've got the talus, which is the tarsal bone that articulates in the ankle joint right there. We've got the other tarsal bones. And we've got the metatarsals and the phalanges of the foot. And here we have my recording setup. So those are all the bones of the skeleton. Hopefully you learned a lot in this video. Special thanks to everyone who supports the channel, whether through Patreon or YouTube channel membership. And if you haven't already, don't forget you can download that free study guide for this video to do some practice to make sure you know this stuff really well. And I also have available anatomy and physiology study cards and complete guides to all of the human body systems on my online store. So check out information for that in the link below. And then here on screen is the next video in the skeletal system. So if you're not sure where to go next and you're learning the skeletal system, check that out. Thanks for being here. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next video. All right, bye.