Bone vessels and cartilage. In the human body at birth, there are over 270 bones, but many of these fuse together during development, leaving a total of 206 separate bones in the adult, not counting numerous small sesamoid bones. The largest bone in the body is the femur or thigh-bone, and the smallest is the stapes in the middle ear. The Greek word for bone is ὀστέον ("osteon"), hence the many terms that use it as a prefix – such as osteopathy. Bone is not uniformly solid, but consists of a flexible matrix (about 30%) and bound minerals (about 70%) which
Body of sphenoid bone Behind the dorsum sellae is a shallow depression, the clivus, which slopes obliquely backward, and is continuous with the groove on the basilar portion of the occipital bone; it supports the upper part of the pons. The lateral surfaces of the body are united with the greater wings of the sphenoid and the medial pterygoid plates. Above the attachment of each greater wing is a broad groove, curved something like the italic letter f; it lodges the internal carotid artery and the cavernous sinus, and is named the carotid sulcus. Along the posterior part of the lateral margin of this