How many bones are ther in the adult human body?
The adult human body has 206 bones. An infant may have from 300-350 bones at birth. Some of these fuse together as the infant grows. When some bones fuse and become one bone (most obvious examples are in the skull, sacrum and hip bones) the number of overall bones drops to the 206 bones that most adults have. Of the 206 bones in the adult human body, more than half (106) are in the hands and feet. The adult skeleton consists of the following bones: •28 skull bones (8 cranial, 14 facial, and 6 ear bones) •The horseshoe-shaped hyoid bone of the neck which is the only bone that does not articulate (connect via a joint) to another bone •26 vertebrae (7 cervical or neck; 12 thoracic; 5 lumbar or loins; the sacrum, which is five fused vertebrae; and the coccyx, which is four fused vertebrae) •24 ribs plus the sternum or breastbone; the shoulder girdle (2 clavicles, the most frequently fractured bones in the body, and 2 scapulae) •the pelvic bones (3 fused bones called the coxal bone, or Os C
