Stylohyoid muscle greater cornu, and just superior the omohyoid muscle. It thus belongs to the group of suprahyoid muscles. When contracted, it elevates the hyoid, this action is primarily brought about during swallowing. It is perforated, near its insertion, by the intermediate tendon of the digastric muscle. A branch from the extracranial path of the facial nerve (CN VII) innervates the Stylohyoid muscle. It may be absent or doubled, lie beneath the carotid artery, or be inserted into the omohyoid, or mylohyoid muscles. The stylohyoid muscle elevates and retracts hyoid bone.Initiates a swallowing action by pulling the hyoid bone in a posterior
Muscle network which could show a large degree of divergence in the formation of muscle cells. Through this analysis, it seems that the myogenic GRN is an ancestral GRN with actual changes in myogenic function and structure possibly being linked to later coopts of genes at different times and places. Evolutionarily, specialized forms of skeletal and cardiac muscles predated the divergence of the vertebrate/arthropod evolutionary line. This indicates that these types of muscle developed in a common ancestor sometime before 700 million years ago (mya). Vertebrate smooth muscle was found to have evolved independently from the skeletal and cardiac muscle types.