🪴 GoDeep
Search
← University Challenge
Portrait of Vomer

Anatomy · Bones

Vomer

The ploughshare bone

Skull · facial bones

The vomer is a thin, unpaired, roughly triangular plate of bone in the midline of the nasal cavity. It forms the posterior and lower part of the nasal septum, running from the roof of the mouth up to the ethmoid and sphenoid. Its name is the Latin for a ploughshare, from its shape.

How to spot them

  • ▸A single thin, flat, triangular plate in the midline of the nose, seen best from behind
  • ▸Forms the lower and back part of the nasal septum; the perpendicular plate of the ethmoid forms the upper part
  • ▸Its lower edge sits on the hard palate; its back edge divides the two posterior nasal openings
  • ▸Named for its resemblance to a ploughshare

What to know

The unpaired plate of bone that forms the lower and back part of the nasal septum

Vomer — with the perpendicular plate of the ethmoid above it.

The Latin word for a ploughshare gives this bone its name

Vomer — from its triangular, blade-like shape.

Seen from behind, it separates the two posterior openings of the nasal cavity like a partition, running the whole height of the septum

Vomer — visible between the choanae in the posterior view.

Its upper border meets the body of the sphenoid and the perpendicular plate of the ethmoid; its lower border rests on the maxillae and palatine bones

Vomer — articulates with sphenoid, ethmoid, maxillae and palatine bones.

Key ideas

  • Together with the perpendicular plate of the ethmoid and the septal cartilage, it divides the nasal cavity into the two nostrils.

Quick-fire facts

  • •The vomer and the mandible are the two unpaired facial bones; the other twelve are in six pairs
  • •The facial skeleton has 14 bones: six paired (maxilla, palatine, zygomatic, nasal, lacrimal, inferior nasal concha) plus vomer and mandible
  • •The vomer forms the posterior-inferior part of the nasal septum
  • •Seen from behind, it forms the entire height of the nasal septum
  • •The upper nasal septum is the perpendicular plate of the ethmoid
  • •The anterior part of the septum is the septal cartilage
  • •From the Latin vomer, a ploughshare

Drill it — 6 cards

1 / 6new card

Sources