Umbilical cord placenta. Animals that lay eggs seem to have a false umbilical-cord that attaches the embryo and yolk together in much the same way. The term "umbilical cord" or just "umbilical" has also come to be used for other cords with similar functions, such as the hose connecting surface-supplied divers to their surface supply of air and/or heating, or space-suited astronauts to their spacecraft. Engineers sometimes use the term to describe a complex or critical cable connecting a component, especially when composed of bundles of conductors of different colors, thickness and types, terminating in a single multi-contact disconnect. In multiple American
Development of the reproductive system into the labia majora in females. There is initially a cloacal membrane, composed of ectoderm and endoderm, reaching from the umbilical cord to the tail, separating the cloaca from the exterior. After the separation of the rectum from the dorsal part of the cloaca, the ventral part of the cloacal membrane becomes the "urogenital membrane". Mesoderm extends to the midventral line for some distance behind the umbilical cord, and forms the lower part of the abdominal wall; it ends below in a prominent swelling, the cloacal tubercle, which after the separation of the rectum becomes the genital tubercle. Dorsally to