What is that little dangly lump of flesh hanging down in the back of your throat? What good is the human tailbone? Why do old men’s eyebrows grow so out of control? Why do human testes move from the protective environment of the abdominal cavity to the relatively external and hostile environment of the scrotum?
It’s questions like these that my students have asked me for years. What I’ve come to realize is that most of these seemingly oddball anatomical structures have a story to tell – often a number of stories. Who discovered it, who named it, what does the name mean, what did early anatomists think it did, and what do we now think it does? While our fascination with anatomy (especially our own) goes way back, the anatomy itself goes back even further. This scale of thought leads to another type of story – the evolutionary story. Our body parts are not ours alone. We share a common anatomy with other vertebrates. Heck, aside from size and orientation, we aren’t really much different than most other mammals, especially if you look at the anatomy.
If you are interested in vertebrate anatomy and evolution, you’ve come to the right place! As a Professor of Biological Sciences at Central Washington University for 34 years, I taught a number of classes revolving around these topics. On this site I plan to share some of what I find fascinating about vertebrate form and function.
Shorter entries can be found in the blog below. Longer pieces can be found on the Essays page. I plan to add dissection videos in the future.
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Body Parts 