Talk:Anatomical terms of location/Archive 1

Use of the word "posterior"
I am familiar with the common usage of the word "posterior" to refer to the buttocks. It is probably appropriate to mention this. However, I do not think that spanking is an appropriate example of its usage, in an article on anatomical terms. I think this reference should be removed.Preacherdoc 13:39, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. Thank you for removing it. --Michael Geary 03:52, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Missing details
So now we have plenty of articles about these terms, but none seem to address the interesting special cases. AxelBoldt 06:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
 * How are the terms ventral and dorsal used in the human head?
 * How are the terms ventral and dorsal used in the human penis?

Human vs Animal (four-legged)
The article should be separated into a anatomical locations on humans, and one for locations on animals. They just don't seem to mix, or at least it makes things confuseing. At minimum the top picture should have a human counterpart. Electron9 23:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

2007-02-1 Automated pywikipediabot message
--CopyToWiktionaryBot 08:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Merging
A better-written and more scholarly article on the same topic exists at Human anatomical terms, but it also covers material Anatomical terms of motion. In my opinion, the best parts of this article and Anatomical terms of motion ought to be merged into Human anatomical terms. Sarah crane 22:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Sarah, many thanks for looking at these articles. You suggest that some of the three articles Anatomical terms of location, Anatomical terms of motion and Human anatomical terms should perhaps be merged. I have been actively involved with the first (which indeed was itself merged recently), and aware of the second, but did not know about the third until you suggested the merge.


 * In fact, User:Beth ohara's article (Human anatomical terms) is extremely recent. You suggest that it might be the "better written and more scholarly", but I am not certain this is the case. Beth's article as it stands contains several inaccurate points, and several more which are slightly incorrect. It (currently) bears the hallmarks of "single author syndrome". That said, most of what she writes is valuable and valid. The other articles may be less readable, but they are factually excellent.


 * My problem with anatomy is that my undergraduate soul is that of an anatomist (and comparative vertebrate anatomist), yet my current job is that of a clinician. Unfortunately, clinical terms of anatomy (used routinely by doctors in hospitals and clinics) often differ quite markedly from those of the strict anatomical text.
 * I would like to disagree to the proposal of merging the articles. We need two different articles - one to cater for the world of animals and one for human, the users and context of these two groups are often different. I am authoring an article on Snake scales and it would be counter-intuitive to link these terms to the human context rateher than an animal context. I think there is adequate justification for letting two articles remain separate. However, they should cross-link appropriately and when read together should not be ambiguous or contradictory. Regards, AshLin 05:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I am certain that Beth's article adds much to the (human/clinical) detail which I had attempted to put into the Anatomical terms of location article (with little success). I would have preferred that Beth had added her information to the two existing articles rather than starting from scratch.


 * Any merging of articles would need to take into account the requirement of an article to be useful for human anatomy, as well as comparative anatomy (see skull, especially its recent evolution, for a good example of how an article which was previously all human-oriented, has been (rightly) changed to include other species). Further, incorporation of clinical terms as well as dry anatomical terms would be helpful.


 * I think leaving the two earlier articles as they are and splitting Beth's article between them would be my preferred solution. (As of now, Beth's article is linked from fewer pages than the others). Perhaps better still would be to merge them all into one super "Anatomical terms" article.


 * I have cross-posted this to the talk page on Anatomical terms of location, and onto Beth's talk pages. I think there is plenty of good material here, and the potential for making things a lot better.


 * Best wishes, Preacherdoc 20:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't merge Two completely different topics. Although an understanding of Quadraped anatomical terms (i.e. Dorsal Surface, Dorsal Bundal, etc) is useful for understanding human anatomical terms it becoms messy when trying to combine them into the same article (i.e rostral). --134.36.125.179 01:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't merge. As some have already pointed out, the terms used in zoology and in medicine differ considerably, and often confusingly. I think this article, if cleaned up, could be quite valuable in pointing out the similarities, differences and points of confusion, though, and not just concentrating on the zoological. In fact, I've been considering taking on part of that task myself, and spent a day this weekend designing a couple of what I think would be better illustrations for the (vertebrate) animal part. Hopefully, I'll get some invertebrate illustrations done in the next couple of days, and get them posted on the Commons for all to see before inserting them. What I really need is an appropriate, modifiable, photo of (a) human(s) (preferably one male and one female) in the upright anatomical position. Better still, several - full front, full back, full side and one at about a 30° angle. Then I could add in a bit about surface anatomical subdivisions, reference points, markers and so on. Any photographers/volunteers? Esseh 07:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Reworking
Hi all. I must admit to being rather disappointed with this page. I find it lacking in a lot of information (especially synonyms), and very unclear and confusing in much of the information it does present. Particularly, I find it does not give clear guidelines or explanations on how general vertebrate terms of location relate to those in used in a medical context. Worst of all (in my mind), the article, as it stands, does not include terms of location for any invertebrate animal.

I am willing to begin an extensive re-write of the article, and have prepared several images to help illustrate, compare, and contrast terms of direction and location in invertebrates, and vertebrates including humans. These can be viewed on the Commons under my gallery (same username). For basic vertebrate, the files are: (1) Anatomical_Directions_and_Axes.JPG, and (2) Planes_of_Section.JPG. For invertebrates. I would like to use (1) Radiate_Oral-aboral_Axes.JPG, (2) Radiate_Radial_Axes.JPG, and (3) Radiate_Planes.JPG. (I haven't put links here to save space, and my time in getting them properly formatted. Copy/search of the image titles should get you there, or check my gallery. I will certainly format them in the article.) I am still hunting for comparable human photos to add to the human section, for comparison, and any help would be appreciated. I also want to add a Table to show comparative terms for different groups. If I don't hear from anyone by 07 April, 2007, I will assume consensus, and begin editing. (The editing may take a while - I'm fairly new at this - so bear with me...) Comments, either before or after I begin, are welcome, of course. If I start too soon, just revert what I did (and please give me a reason why!). Thanks to all. Esseh 04:57, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello again everyone. As you may or may not have noticed, after some preparation (including preparing some new images, creating tables and looking up the appropriate refs), and having heard no cries of anguish to the contrary, I have begun a major re-write of this article. Please bear with me for a few days - it may take some time to complete. In the meantime, I am still desparately seeking some appropriate photographs for the human anatomy section. Yes, I would prefer GFDL photographs to diagrams. Preferably both male and female, in standard anatomical position, one of each in full anterior and posterior views, and at about a 30o angle to the camera. They'd need to be as high def as possible (so I can crop out various bits to focus on them), against a contrasting or neutral background. Any photographically-inclined volunteers? Cheers, all, and bear with me. Esseh 11:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Good work! Something I noticed, and tried (but failed) to fix - there appears to be a large block of text that appears to the right of Table 1, rendering it quite unreadable (like a long, skinny column).  I'm not sure why it's doing it, right now it starts at the "Directions in Human Anatomy" heading.  WLU 15:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi WLU, and thanks. Actually, I will be replacing the "Directions in Human Anatomy" section at some point, as well. I included the table as a quick-ref/disambiguation sort of thing. Sorry it looks funny to you. Could it be a difference in your browser? Right now the table is floating, and left-aligned, so text will flow down the right. Maybe it'd look better if I right aligned it. Let me try that now, and let me know what you think... Esseh 15:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. Actually, that looks worse to me. Somehow, there appears to be no space between the text and the table. Very annoying! Let me know what you think. Esseh 15:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The table occupies the width of my browser window (currently using IE, I'll try to remember to have a look at it on Safari tonight). Right now the table is actually covering up a bunch of text.  For me, the table is sufficiently large as to fill the screen, so having text flow around the table makes it impossible for me to read.  I'd just put the text below the table itself.  If you right-aligned it, I'd have the same problem but on the opposite side.  I blame microsoft.  WLU 16:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmmm... Thanks. I'm using Netscape 8.1, but I think it's running a Foxfire shell. The text doesn't run into the table, but does run right up to the edge. Annoying and unesthetic, but not fatal. I agree with your assessment of microsoft - may the fleas of a thousand camels infest Bill Gates' armpits! (And his legions of fawning acolytes, too!) I use a PC, but whenever and wherever I can avoid it, I will use someting (anything) other than Microbloat software. OK... tirade over. Let me know how it looks with Safari. And thanks again... Esseh 17:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I dunno what you did, but it looks fine now. 'Course, I'm on a different computer now, using safari.  WLU 00:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Honest, I changed nothing - it's still left aligned. I'm going to right-align it now, and we'll see how it goes. Thanks again. More text to follow tomorrow... I hope. Esseh 02:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, got my reft and light bass-ackwards. My old sergeant would be disappointed... but not surprised.... Esseh 02:08, 17 April 2007 (UTC).

Hi WLU (and anyone else that's interested). I've added more text and images to the article. Please let me know what you think, and make changes as appropriate. Obviously, it's a long way from finished, but I'm fried for tonight. See y'all (with pics of jellyfish) tomorow. Esseh 11:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps encouragement isn't required here, but I want to state that I very much like this page and the quality of work that has clearly gone into it. Tgm1024 03:32, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm bothered by the suggestion that rostral is (1) synonymous with superior and (2) rare in the context of humans. I often see rostral-caudal in neuroscience as an axis that relates to the developing spinal chord. So within the mature skull you see superior/inferior/anterior/posterior as a straightforward up/down/forward/back, but the rostral-caudal axis is taken to mean more like pre-frontal lobe to brainstem

Plants
This could use a sentence somewhere about plant terms, particularly how apical and basal are used. J. Spencer 21:21, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Formatting problems around one of the tables
I've just been trying to clean up some of the spacing in the article, but I've noticed that there seems to be some kind of formatting problem with the first table in the article, specifically: Table 1: Defined Axes in Vertebrate Zoology, under the Anterior and posterior section. As you should be able to see, the table is, for some reason, making the next section appear to the extreme right of it, making it unreadable and stretching the entire page outwards. As I don't know much about table formatting, I can't fix the problem myself, so can someone who knows about this fix it? --Hibernian 18:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, looks like it was fixed by User:Mikael Häggström. --Hibernian 02:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Yep, I deleted the "left"-instruction in the table, making it move the text to beneath it instead of to the right of it. Mikael Häggström 05:36, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

-ad
What ought to be mentioned is the ending used to indicate "towards" (as opposed to "at"). Such as in "caudal" = at the tail, whereas "caudad" = tailwards (from whereever except at the tail). Dysmorodrepanis 12:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Anterior/posteriaor
When using this page (which I otherwise found very helpful), I got confused by the reference to anterior/posterior early on, only to find the clarification that anterior is semantically equivalent to ventral in humans some time later, after going away with the wrong idea. It might be worth mentioning this difference for humans when anterior/posterior is first mentioned.

Jim digriz 13:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I know very well what anterior and posterior (and all the other terms) mean as applied to humans, and came away thinking that the article was incorrect and needed to be changed. I think it could be worded in such a way as to give the right impression the first time around.

User:keno 09 November 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.88.255.139 (talk) 01:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Anatomical terms of motion
A merge between this page and Anatomical terms of motion was suggested a year ago, this page has been thoroughly re-vamped, perhaps a merge or review of the two pages might be beneficial? WLU 17:11, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Brilliant, helpful page. Thankyou. Ron Shaw intelligentaustralia.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.181.40 (talk) 00:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I found one explanation concerning terms of motions very confusing, if not contradicting. First the section stated a transverse plane [...] divides the body into cranial and caudal (head and tail) portions (with image showing the plane for cross-section), then it continues to specify for post-embryo humans a coronal plane is vertical and a transverse plane is horizontal to state then (and here was the contradiction for me):
 * When describing anatomical motion, these planes describe the axis along which an action is performed. So by moving through the transverse plane, movement travels from head to toe. For example, if a person jumped directly up and then down, their body would be moving in the transverse plane.
 * Apart from the perceived strangeness of the expression of jumping up and then down, if I jump upwards I move along a vertical axis. Please explain me if I am too stupid to understand, but I read transversal plane=horizontal, so I should not be moving along the transversal but the coronal plane. Comments, corrections welcome. --Ben T/C 14:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

figures mismatch
There are two Figure 6 in the article! SyP (talk) 12:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

error in table? proximodistal definition
I am confused about the definition of the term proximodistal" in the table of defined axes. (Table 1)

I believe the definition in the table--"from the tip of an appendage to ... the body" is backwords. Surely that term as defined in the table would be distoproximal.--Sallypursell (talk) 02:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Why zootomy and androtomy terms differ
90% of the content of this section was patently false. I therefore rewrote it. I also expanded the embedded table to include the human anatomical terms as they are used in the context of the human brain, as the existing information was only accurate in terms of the human torso.Erikmartin (talk) 06:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

The two sections below this one should also be modified, as they are only correct in the context of the torso. For example, it may be correct that it is rare to speak of a caudal/rostral axis as synomynous with the inferior/superior axis in the context of the torso, it is far from rare to speak of the caudal/rostral axis as synonymous with the posterior/anterior axis in the context of the brain. For another example, it is only correct to say that anterior is synonymous with ventral in the context of the torso. In the context of the brain, it is not the case, and inferior is synonymous with ventral.Erikmartin (talk) 07:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

human/zoological table
I added plain English synonyms to the human/zoo table. A casual or hurried reader will gravitate towards the table and I wanted to make it easy to learn the material. Feedback is welcome of course. TomCerul (talk) 14:19, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Rostral vs. Anterior
In the human head, but becoming especially important when looking at the human brain, is the difference between rostral and anterior. At the base of the neck, where rostral is nearly synonymous with superior, the "direction" of rostral curves as one moves through the brainstem and into the diencephalon, and once in the telencephalon, rostral is finally - at that point only - nearly synonymous with anterior. When describing brain areas, it is very different depending where in the head one is speaking of to say an area is rostral from a given point than to say it is anterior. I therefore put a (albeit crude) diagram showing how the direction of rostral/caudal curves in one section of this article, and I removed rostral from the chart where it was listed as a synonym for anterior in the human head. I am posting this in talk in case anyone disagrees, has anything to contribute, or whatever. Inspiring discussion is a big part of what wikipedia is all about, after all. Thanks in advance for your input! Spiral5800 (talk) 03:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Usage in human anatomy
I don't think the section on "Usage in Human Anatomy is correct. Generally, in medical imaging, the z-axis points towards the patient's feet, the y-axis towards the ceiling, and the x-axis towards the patient's left side when they are on their back.

So transverse is in the xy plane, coronal in zx, and sagittal in zy.

64.42.209.81 21:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

The article says:
 * - Coronal = YZ
 * - Transverse = XY
 * - Sagittal = XZ

You say:
 * - Coronal = XZ
 * - Transverse = XY
 * - Sagittal = YZ

So you think that Coronal and Sagittal in the article should be the other way around. Well I say:
 * - Coronal = XY
 * - Transverse = XZ
 * - Sagittal = YZ

So that means that I think the article has all of them incorrect and that you have Coronal and Transverse incorrect.

I'll explain why I think this. Each plane has a corresponding axis. This means that within a specific plane, motion will occur around a specific axis. They are as follows:
 * - Motion in the Coronal Plane occurs around the Sagittal Axis.
 * - Motion in the Transverse Plane occurs around the Longitudinal Axis.
 * - Motion in the Sagittal Plane occurs around the Lateral Axis.

Let me clarify the axes.
 * - Lateral Axis runs horizontally (X)
 * - Longitudinal Axis runs vertically (Y)
 * - Sagittal Axis runs anteroposterially (Z)

Because you can give a coordinate to each axis, it can make it easier to remember which coordinates apply to planes. For instance:
 * - Motion in the Coronal Plane (XY) occurs around the Sagittal Axis (Z).
 * - Motion in the Transverse Plane (XZ) occurs around the Longitudinal Axis (Y).
 * - Motion in the Sagittal Plane (YZ) occurs around the Lateral Axis (X).

See how each plane has the 2 coordinates that its axis does not have? In turn, each axis has the corrdinate that its plane does not have. So I'll go ahead and fix the article. If anyone disagrees with me, pelase give an explanation as to why you disagree. Jamesters 04:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

How confusing! Each proposed labelling of the planes as X-Y or whatever is correct -- in the appropriate frame of reference. It's just that there's much disagreement about which frame of reference is appropriate; in fact, there are two distinct disagreements about that. Can you say NPOV? Or, for that matter, relativity? :-) Knew ya could.

Here are a number of reference frames, all of which have been used either in the article or in this discussion:
 * 1) As of 7-Dec-2006, the article says: "One imagines a human in the anatomical position [i.e. standing], and ... the X-axis going left to right, the Y-axis passing up and down, and the Z-axis going front and back."
 * 2) But the first poster above, 64.42.209.81, says "Generally, in medical imaging, the z-axis points towards the patient's feet, the y-axis towards the ceiling, ...", which, to make sense, must view the patient as lying down (presumably, ready to be imaged)
 * 3) The Visible Human Project puts the subject in anatomical position, but calls the vertical axis "Z" and the dorsal/ventral axis "Y".  References:
 * 4) Go to the Project's Slice, Surface, and Animation extraction page, wait for the Java applet to load, and look at the axes depicted near the top-left corner of its window, or
 * 5) Look at the screen snap of that applet in section 2.2 of http://diwww.epfl.ch/w3lsp/publications/gigaserver/tvhswsafa.pdf
 * 6) According to http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/xMartialArts/FightingDynamics.htm, Tait-Bryan angles even disagree with all the others about the X axis!  (This frame is arguably relevant because, for a long time, the article used it; but all vestiges of that have since been edited away.)

Note that the article itself is inconsistent. Although it says it's using the frame of reference that I quoted above in (1), the labelling it gives is actually using the frame of reference from (3).

So we have disagreements about how to label the axes in space, and about how the subject should be oriented. The only thing everyone so far seems to agree on is how the coronal, sagittal, and transverse planes divide the human body.

Here's a table summarizing the frames of reference that have been mentioned, and the plane labellings they imply.

The only solution to this particular little edit war, ISTM, is thus to NPOVify the whole thing. The only reasons I'm writing this long, shamelessly POV essay instead of doing it myself are (a) to justify my assertion that it's an edit war, and (b) that I know nothing at all about the article's subject matter, and so have no clue which reference frames are appropriate to include in such an NPOV version, and which are irrelevant, or even totally bogus. Erics 08:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

As others mentioned before, there is not a single "correct" axis labeling that could be used for describing the anatomical planes. However, there is one well-defined coordinate system that is also independent of the patient's position (standing/lying): I am talking about the patient-fixed coordinate system as defined by the DICOM standard:


 * - X-axis: running from right to left
 * - Y-axis: running from front to back
 * - Z-axis: running from bottom to top

(Unfortunately, I did not write down the exact section where the coordinate system is specified in the DICOM standard. But if someone remembers it, here's the link to check this reference: ftp://medical.nema.org/medical/dicom/2009/)

This right-handed coordinate system is also denoted by "LPS", denoting the axis directions of x, y, and z (Left-Posterior-Superior).

In this case, the anatomical planes could be described as follows:
 * - sagittal = Y-Z
 * - coronal = X-Z
 * - transverse = X-Y

Keilandreas (talk) 01:50, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

An English question:
 * a cow's udder is at the ventral side

or
 * a cow's udder is on the ventral side

AxelBoldt 23:16 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure but would go for "on". I think that "at the side" of something tends to suggest that it is next to it but less involved - The National Film Theatre stands at the side of the Queen Elizabeth Hall" (hmmm maybe not even a good example!) - but "on" I think suggests that it is actually attached or touching it. Or something. Oh dear, I was trying to help, now I've just confused myself. :( Try "on", I really think that's it ... Nevilley 23:22 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)

On - (In this case). But English is a funny language. Mintguy

Agreed, for the reason Nevilley describes. Your heart is on your left side, but the dog in the picture might be walking at your left side. :-) Erics 08:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Ummm, actually it'd be logical to say your heart was in your left side, but one doesn't; the correct idiom is on. As Mintguy says, English is odd that way. There's even regional variation -- folks in England tend to say a store is in such-and-such a street, while we North Americans say it's on. Each usage sounds weird to the other group. Erics 08:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a nice new article anatomical position which deals specifically with terms in human anatomy. I tried merging it into this article but it didn´t work well. It might be best to rewrite some of this article here to remove references to human anatomy and make it more general, so that the specific details of human antomical terms can all go to the other one. Does that make sense? Kosebamse 04:23 25 May 2003 (UTC)

Both articles are doing well now, this one giving the general terminology and the other one some specific details. However, I´m still unhappy with the planes section, as it is the only one that deals specifically with human anatomy. It would be better if it were rewritten to become more universal, but unfortunately I am not too familiar with the subject where other living things are concerned. Perhaps a biologist or veterinarian could help? Kosebamse 09:13 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Why direct lateral to this page? This seems to happen a lot on Wikipedia-direct a specific thing to a general topic. Lateral has more than one meaning; lateral thought for example. -Adrian

Hi Adrian,

It depends on the specific usage of the word "lateral". If an article discusses "lateral thought", then the term isn't being used in an anatomical sense, so it shouldn't really be linked to this page. However, in medical and veterinary science, these terms are used very heavily and they have specific meanings (and even particular nuances which you won't find discussed in very many textbooks! :-). They help to disambiguate discussions in these fields, where phrases like "on top of", "in front of", etc., are easy to mis-interpret.

So, in medical and veterinary fields, where these terms have extremely specific meanings, they're can be linked to this page to explain those meanings. Do you have a link to the offending article? You can change it if you don't think the link is appropriate...

Jonathan Merritt 1 September 2003

There's now a nice kangaroo picture here to demonstrate graphically what each anatomical term is but is the picture released for use under or still copyrighted? Alex.tan 09:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

- The following was recently added:
 * The terms anterior and posterior should not be used when refering to most animals however, and are particularly incorrect for the quadrupeds (animals which commonly use all four legs for locomotion).

A Google search for "animal anterior site:.edu" gives over 26,000 hits, and already among the first ten are several that define "anterior end of an animal is the head end." It may be ok to say that in Wikipedia we shouldn't use the terms in that way, but we certainly have to explain how everybody else uses them.
 * In the limbs, the terms cranial and caudal are used in the region proximal to the carpus (the "wrist", in the forelimb) and the tarsus (the "ankle" in the hindlimb). Distal to the carpal joint, the forward direction in animals and the top of the palm region in humans is referred to as dorsal, while the rearward direction is referred to as palmar. Distal to the tarsal joint, the forward direction in animals, and the top of the foot in humans, is referred to as dorsal, while the rearward direction is referred to as plantar.

I cannot make heads and tails of this paragraph. Maybe it can be explained better. AxelBoldt 20:18, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * I tried to clear it up a little. --dcf 14:16, 2004 Jun 27 (UTC)

---

Super- Supero- Supra-
 * \Bird/

I propose moving the 'relative motions' section off into an article by itself. Many of the anatomically-related articles make free use of movement terminology; I think it would be more intuitive for someone who wanted to know what the hell dorsiflexion was to click on a 'Anatomical terms of motion' link for clarification. --dcf 14:16, 2004 Jun 27 (UTC)


 * As I threatened almost 2 years ago, I am moving the 'relative motions' section off into an article by itself: Anatomical terms of motion. --Dcfleck 03:12, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Alright, but it is then your duty to fix ALL of the links that should go to that article, not to anatomical terms of location. And you should also move the relevant external links. ---Marcus- 13:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * In progress. --Dcfleck 13:49, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Retrolateral and prolateral
In arachnology I commonly see the terms "retrolateral" and "prolateral" used to describe views of the pedipalp (roughly the spider's "arm" or "hand"). Neither of these terms are mentioned in this article and I haven't been able to find a definition for them anywhere. Can someone provide a definition for these two terms? Kaldari (talk) 19:55, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Anatomical planes in animal brains
Of the subsection "Anatomical planes in animal brains", I find only the first two sentences somewhat understandable. The rest is a "jargon for jargon's sake" display of superior technical knowledge; not at all what we need for general readers. Would some competent anatomist please inspect this section and edit it so that it can be understood by any interested layperson who has read and absorbed the preceding sections of the article. yoyo (talk) 04:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Error in Human Terms?
I am by no means a professional, but it seems to me that various terms are used incorrectly in "Table 3: Equivalent Directional Terms used in Vertebrate Zoology and Human Anatomy". Although the table seems to cite sources, I have at least one textbook (2010, Discovering Biological Psychology, 2nd edition, Laura A. Freberg) where the directional terms are used differently.

In that textbook, the directional terms are said to be used one way for the brain and head, but another way for the neck downward. To give examples: for the brain Both Rostral and Anterior refer to the face, and both Dorsal and Superior refer to the top of the head and hair. For the body, now Rostral and Anterior refer upwards on the body (toward the sky), while Dorsal and Superior refer to the back and butt.

So is this textbook verifiably correct/inccorect? I will not change the table or add (my own version of) the image used in the textbook until I have received some feedback on this matter.-Tesseract2 (talk) 02:01, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The textbook is incorrect for Rostal/anterior on the body, which is towards the front (chest area). However, more generally, this whole page is a bit of a mess, and a complete re-write is on my to-do list, complete with a diagram showing exactly what means what for animals and humans (including oddities like oral/aboral for urchins). Mokele (talk) 02:07, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I need to ask, what is your source?? I am confused as to how this textbook could get something so basic wrong - is there disagreement in the field over how to use these terms?

Either way, I absolutely agree that this page is a mess. I am glad to hear you plan a re-write.-Tesseract2 (talk) 02:11, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Moore's Essential Clinical Anatomy and Netter's atlas of human anatomy. Plus I teach medical school anatomy.  I've almost never seen "rostral" used for anterior in humans outside of the head, but anterior is most definitely the "front".  And your comment motivated me to get started on the image for the re-write. Mokele (talk) 13:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I am glad to hear it. I am hoping we can all agree on common definitions - whatever they may be (or else progress will be delayed).-Tesseract2 (talk) 03:16, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Anatomical Position
Most of the introductory material of this topic seems foolish or contentious, without a preliminary reference to "Anatomical Position". Wikidity (talk) 22:31, 27 May 2011 (UTC) Anatomical terms are consistently defined where used, contrary to the article. Anatomical terms are defined with respect to whatever is the "Anatomical Position" for the animal in question. Anatomical Position does not imply (nor dos it mean to imply) "comfortable".

FWIW, Dorsal and Ventral are not used in human anatomy to describe relative positions. They are used as part of certain names, such as "Dorsal Root Ganglion". However, where the dorsum on a fish is where you find the Dorsal Fin, if one were to look for such a structure on a person, they'd look at the Posterior surface. (This is a hypothetical example, of course).

Kernel.package (talk) 06:10, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

(Redirected from Sagitally)
Is it possible to ensure that all "Redirected" entries are resolved, or at least mentioned in the target article? This article should explain or at least qualify in some way for the redirections made to it. Wikidity (talk) 22:44, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

terms within mouth
it seems nowhere on wikipedia can one find the terms used to describe directions within the mouth (i.e., on teeth). I'll add here, if someone knows more please add. HMallison (talk) 11:11, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Found a source for paleon and added that. HMallison (talk) 11:25, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Ostial - Distal
Any chance that somebody who knows what they're talking about could add a definition for "ostial" and perhaps a section on the Ostial-Distal directions (similar to the proximal and distal nomenclature for appendages)? Presumably, here Ostial refers to the Opening from which a blood vessel branches off, while distal refers to the opposite end away from the branch. However, I could be completely wrong, just trying to interpret results from an operative report where they describe the ostial and distal regions of the LAD. I'll take a stab in the main article, but if someone better versed in anatomy than I could fix it up, that would be great. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stokerm (talk • contribs) 21:40, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Terminal and subterminal
Fish anatomy mentions terminal and subterminal. These terms are not mentioned in this article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * A little Googling indicates that those terms are only used for fish -- "terminal" means at the end of the head, and "subterminal" means on the underside of the head. I'm reluctant to edit the article myself because I know very little about fish anatomy and had never seen the terms used. Looie496 (talk) 16:36, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I see. I just thought they might be a sensible addition, but I don't feel strongly about this issue. I wouldn't even call myself a hobby biologist or anything like that (I think I encountered sagittal and some other terms when learning about the anatomy of the larynx in an introduction class to phonetics), I just happened upon the terms randomly. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:57, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

"Rostral/caudal" in human head?


From the table that explains the differences between human and animal anatomy, I couldn't tell what the terms "rostral" and "caudal" mean in the human head. I assume they're synonyms for "anterior/front" and "posterior/back"? AxelBoldt (talk) 21:13, 13 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I was right, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10971/ . I will add it to the article. AxelBoldt (talk) 18:56, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I missed this earlier, but that's not correct. The picture I'm adding here (which also appears in our article) shows the correct meaning of rostral and caudal.  Basically the human upright posture causes this axis to have a 90 degree angle in the middle of the head. Looie496 (talk) 19:08, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Medial between dorsal and ventral?
The section entitled Left and right (lateral), and medial defines medial as "towards the medial plane" and treats "medial" and "middle" as synonyms. Does this mean that the point between dorsal and ventral is also medial? Based on the literature, it seems as though medial is only used with respect to left and right (lateral) reference points. Hence, terms such as "ventral medial" or "medial dorsal." Although this section also defines medial as being opposite to lateral, it is not clear if this does or does not apply to dorsal and ventral as well. If not, I think this should be made clear. If so, then perhaps this section needs to be broadened a little bit. My two cents. danielkueh (talk) 03:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It depends a lot on the context. In some contexts (take a snake for example), the area between dorsal and ventral is the lateral area, i.e. "the sides", but in other contexts, medial might be appropriate. Terms like medial don't refer to a specific plane, but are relative to the context, so it's important to use them within a descriptive context. Kaldari (talk) 05:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If medial doesn't refer to a plane, then that needs to be corrected. That is how it is also currently defined in the article. Other than NCBI, I haven't looked closely at what the other sources say about this. danielkueh (talk) 12:44, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The more I'm looking into this (e.g., Anatomy and Physiology of Farm Animals|Anatomy and Physiology of Farm), the more it is clear that it is incorrect to refer to areas between dorsal and ventral as medial. I think an additional qualifier such as ..."toward the median plane" with respect to a lateral (left or right) point would be better. Thoughts? danielkueh (talk) 16:24, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure I have never seen the term "medial" used for any axis other than left-right. Anatomists very commonly use "medial" and "lateral" without qualification, and I'm sure most readers understand that "medial" means "relatively close to the midline" and "lateral" means "relatively far from the midline".  Because of the general lack of dorsal-ventral symmetry, there is really no well-defined midline on the dorsal-ventral axis to use as a point of reference. Looie496 (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Looie, that was what I was thinking. The way it is currently written still leaves some room for ambiguity. I think to make it should be made explicitly clear, by adding a qualifier such as the one I suggested to the on Left, Right, and lateral section and then incorporate your text on the lack of symmetry between dorsal and ventral into the dorsal and ventral section to make the point that there is no well defined midline between dorsal and ventral. danielkueh (talk) 18:37, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Table 3 - human torso/head confusion
Table 3 gives the impression that superior-inferior in the human torso is equal to anterior-posterior in the human head. I understand that what they are saying is that vertebrate zootomy anterior-posterior is equal to superior-inferior in the human torso, and vertebrate zootomy anterior-posterior is equal to anterior-positerior in the human head. The confusion comes beacause if you line up a human spine with most other vertebrates the brains will be at 90 degree angle to each other. However, having human torso superior-inferior on the same line as human head anterior-posterior is a bit confusing.

The only way I can think to fix this is to break the table apart; so you have one table comparing vertebrate zootomy and human torso, and another table comparing vertebrate zootomy and human head. This has the obvious draw back of increasing the length of the text. Anyone else have any good ideas on how to clarify this? SBarnes (talk) 20:29, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Kangaroos
I remember being thought that anterior, posterior, superior and inferior are relative to the standard position of the animal being studied, but I don't have the sources to support this statement and the article implies this is only true for humans and vertebrates that happen to move around head first. I can accept my teacher being wrong, my point is: the kangaroo (or similarly positioned animal) would be a better example to illustrate the contrasting terminology between human and animal anatomy showing that anterior points up as opposed to to the front in kangaroos.

There is also a minor point of the introduction mentioning kangaroos when describing cranial, but carefully to avoids the example with the term anterior, which initially confused me. Further, the section on anterior-posterior mentions that anterior is cranial for all vertebrates (including humans apparently), but the section does make an exception for posterior being caudal for humans (where it is dorsal). Other sections describe the exception for human anatomy to include anterior being ventral in humans, this seems to be inconsistent. PinkShinyRose (talk) 12:56, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Reorder
I have reordered this article so that the order goes: I feel that the majority of readers will be most acquainted with human anatomy. By placing it first, we can more-easily introduce concepts that can be mentioned in other areas of this article. --LT910001 (talk) 07:35, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Introduction
 * Planes and position
 * Human anatomy, followed by vertebrate and invertebrate anatomy

Proposed merge with Anteversion
Should be merged as with other items of anatomical terminology. The context provided to readers will enhance the quality of the article overall, and benefit more readers than having a fragmented article. LT910001 (talk) 13:01, 28 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment Agree with foregoing. Anteversion and Retroversion should be retained as redirs. If no one beats me to it in the next few days (and I remember) I can do it. JonRichfield (talk) 05:30, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with the merging. Every term should have an article for itself, although I agree with all anatomical terms referred and succintly explained in Anatomical terms of location --SimonPerera (talk) 17:57, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * @SimonPerera I am sorry, but you do not make your point clear. "Every term should have an article for itself..."??? Surely not? There are dozens of terms in Anatomical terms of location alone. You surely would not like separate articles for dorsal, dorsad, dorsiventral etc? I could well imagine a separate redirection for each of those terms to a suitable section in Anatomical terms of location (which is what I propose for Anteversion for example) but it is positively beneficial to have closely related and associated terms dealing with coherent themes logically articulated in a single article. Putting them into separate articles leads to confusion in correlating them and enormous amounts of work in keeping the separated but linked articles coordinated.


 * Far from being helpful, splitting a coherent article into separate articles is disastrous even if they are copiously linked. Coherence is crucial where it is appropriate. Then you say: "...agree with all anatomical terms referred and succinctly explained in Anatomical terms of location"? How do you see those two views as not being mutually contradictory if they are related? Or did you have some totally extraneous meaning in mind? Please clarify. JonRichfield (talk) 18:35, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Typo
Seems like a typo: "X-rays pass from their source to patient's anterior body wall through the body to exit through posterior body wall". Please, update this sentence. Arkadi kagan (talk) 07:45, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * What's wrong with it? HCA (talk) 14:08, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Concur with HCA. Are you complaining about the punctuation or what? JonRichfield (talk) 17:23, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Distal and Proximal
These redirect here. Currently they are very confusingly written, and don't actually make sense: "As in other vertebrates, the terms 'proximal' and 'distal' are used to describe the point of attachment to, and part of an appendage furthest away from, the body, respectively. However, other terms are used for direction in the appendages, given the unique position of the limbs (in standard anatomical position) in humans."

-that's the full passage, with my italics to highlight just one issue. I came here looking to see if there was a useful destination for a link at: "Adenocarcinomas tend to occur distally and squamous cell carcinomas proximally, but the converse may also be the case" from Esophageal cancer, but since the oesophagus cannot really be considered an "appendage", and proximal and distal are here apparently relative to the teeth, it isn't ready to be linked to. Since the use of the terms seems in practice more complicated, is there a case for a seperate article on the pair? Wiki CRUK John (talk) 14:46, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, I've had a go Wiki CRUK John (talk) 15:41, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for noticing and fixing the problem, . This article is part of a series of Anatomical terminology articles and needs a fair bit of attention, so any other edits you make would be more than worthwhile. I and some other editors have recently been centralising a lot of the definitional pages, because they can be covered and edited a lot better as a single article rather than 20 short, poorly-tended individual articles that all interlink. That said, unfortunately because this article looks like it needs a lot of it hasn't been as well-tended as the other terminology articles. I'd be very happy to work with you to improve this page. --LT910001 (talk) 23:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks - I may well find other things here, as in this case looking for links to help make other articles (essentially on cancer) more accessible, but a systematic sorting is going to be more efficiently done by someone with anatomical training. But if I ever get (as I am likely to) a group of such people doing Wikipedia training, I'll point them this way in any workshop session. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 09:35, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks John. I forget that CRUK stands for your association with the cancer research institute. I am currently waiting on a FLN of Anatomical terms of motion. Once that proof of concept succeeds (ie. that these articles can make it), then I will start work here. I've left a talk message on your talk page about a good training opportunity, but as I am a member of WP:ANATOMY it may be somewhat biased =P. --LT910001 (talk) 10:17, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposed split of some content
This article is getting very long and contains information about a lot of different things. I think it would help to simplify matters if we split some of the content about Anatomical planes and Anatomical position to their respective articles. These are essential concepts to this article, but I don't think they should be mentioned in full as they are now. --LT910001 (talk) 10:15, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:09, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

De-bolding some content
This article is very comprehensive but the number of bolded words makes reading this article like rolling over a porcupine. Would there be any support to de-bolding some of the words on this article, so that only the main words in each subsection are kept bold? I agree bold is very useful to showing the words (eg "superior" for "Superior/inferior" section), but I feel the number of bold words is impacting on readability and also gives makes identifying the key word in each section more difficult. --LT910001 (talk) 10:18, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Words should only be bolded when they redirect here, not just for random emphasis. If they do redirect, I support keeping them bold. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 14:48, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * See, for example, this section: Anatomical_terms_of_location for an example of over-bolding. --LT910001 (talk) 23:22, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ (preserved redirected terms) --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:09, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Ahem... yet another article on anatomical terminology?
I dread to ask, but would there be support for an article along the lines of Anatomical terms of descriptive attributes (Yes, I know, but I am open to alternative wording; I haven't yet thought it out properly.)

The sort of thing I have in mind is terms of form (as in "gracile", "filiform", "capitate", "turbinate", "cochlear", "trabecular", etc.) They might be full words or roots such as might be prefixes or suffixes, eg caec- or capil-.

Any pros or cons? JonRichfield (talk) 17:23, 24 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm in favor of it. HCA (talk) 17:32, 24 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Support that - would be very helpful and save reaching for the dictionary! Iztwoz (talk) 18:00, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * An excellent idea. I would propose Anatomical terms of neuroanatomy or Anatomical terms of microanatomy or Anatomical terms of embryology (on my to do list =P), which would cover the relevant terms and others. Neuroanatomy probably would cover many in the given list. There may in fact already be some articles we're not yet aware of. I would support an article that (1) has a clear title and (2) can be linked from the anatomical infoboxes - we do this now for all bones & muscles, and Iztwoz states that these can be great educational aids if readers know about them. --LT910001 (talk) 23:17, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * , I took the trouble of reading the late Glossary of anatomical terms and discovered it was actually specifically relating to the nervous system, so I've moved it to Anatomical terms of neuroanatomy, something we discussed above. --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:47, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I feel no pain, and if I did, I would deserve it; I had forgotten about this and haven't looked in since hmmm... APRIL!!! Sorry! JonRichfield (talk) 14:59, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That's alright, it's probably quite similar for me! one article which may suit this (obviously only for relevant terms) is Anatomical terms of bone. Anatomical terms of neuroanatomy could be expanded to take up some of the other terms (eg gracile, arguably cochlear, etc). These articles are pretty central to all of the anatomy articles, amongst out most viewed (WP:ANAT500) and are linked by some of the infoboxes now, so improving them is quite useful. --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:36, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Additional terms
Just brainstorming, but some additional terms that may need to be mentioned: --Tom (LT) (talk) 03:42, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
 * "Endo" and "Exo", "Peri"

Proposed merge with Dorsum (anatomy)
Better represented in one spot. Will benefit readers by virtue of centralising information and reducing needless fragmentation, in addition providing context of surrounding terms. Can be expanded at a later date if need be. Tom (LT) (talk) 23:05, 25 October 2014 (UTC)


 * In spite of the size of the main article I support this, because more important than size is rationality of articulation. Topics whose discussion articulate mutually should be kept together. Dorsum certainly is a word that might be referred to, but it is a concept peripheral to dorso-ventrality and would be none the worse for being in a coherent article with a suitable redir. JonRichfield (talk) 11:50, 27 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Agreed, should definitely be merged. HCA (talk) 20:01, 27 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Merge: The size of the other article definitely agrees. Ventral is already a redirect, and since it has been very long since the discussion has already started, we might just get this merge going. DS Crowned (talk) 10:20, 9 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Query: Is the proposal here to turn dorsum (anatomy) into a redirect to the relevant part of this article, and transfer its contents to here? If so, I can support that. Looie496 (talk) 12:40, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That's what I'm proposing and I'll complete the merge shortly. --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:02, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:36, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Regions and quadrants
The Intro has planes and axes, but could include abdominal regions (e.g. epigastric, hypogastric) and quadrants (e.g. LLQ left lower abdominopelvic quadrant, RUQ etc.). Mathglot (talk) 22:56, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Anterior redirect and other redirects going to the Human anatomy section
Because of this edit by, I've become aware (or reminded) of the fact that the anterior redirect goes to the Human anatomy section of the article. And yet the Anterior and posterior subsection of the "Other vertebrates" section states "Anterior redirects here." That's because it used to, obviously. The redesign of this article has made it so that the anterior redirect and other redirects, such as Posterior (anatomy), point to the human section even though these terms are not only used for humans. While we do give humans more weight in various ways on Wikipedia, I don't see that humans should have primary designation in these particular redirect cases. I'll alert WP:Anatomy and WP:Animal anatomy to this matter. Flyer22 (talk) 03:27, 21 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I think that trying to cover so many animal groups in one article just doesn't work. Parts of the introduction, for example, although supposedly an introduction to the whole article, apply only to vertebrates. The invertebrate stuff at the end, including the Spiders section, aren't properly integrated. I suspect the page should be split and/or material moved elsewhere. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:38, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The entire article is a mess, and I don't even understand why we make the distinction between human and non-human anatomy here - it makes them look unrelated. I think the best solution is to split and rewrite the entire article from the ground up, and have thought so for a long time. The problem is that I don't have the time to undertake such a project right now. CFCF   💌 📧 17:14, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree with Flyer22, there is no need for us to redirect to humans here.
 * In brief, I made the split between humans and other vertebrates, which should properly be titled "Humans and bipedal vertebrates" and "Other vertebrates". It was previously very confusing because of the extensive amount of material about humans that was integrated with material about other vertebrates. The reference points and some terms are quite different. I am not sure how to integrate this without trimming a lot of material or splitting the article or continually saying "However," which is confusing for readers. I think we also have a useful split between species for readers who may be interested in particular species. Also some sections of the article refer to terms that are species specific, so it's confusing to lump them all together. Not too sure what to do here, some things we could consider in the future:
 * Regroup into general titles and trim a lot of material, have a section title "Variations between species" at the end
 * Move a lot of the species-specific information to the overall "Anatomical terminiology" article where it is quite relevant
 * Continue status quo, alter redirects to animal information.
 * Jettison species divisions entirely and remerge content.
 * I'm leaning towards the "Variations between species" section with most content moved over to Anatomical terminology where it serves as a useful reminder of difference between species. Thoughts?--Tom (LT) (talk) 20:19, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Subsections
Relating to the discussion above, I've retitled the sections "Humans and two-legged animals", "Four-legged animals" and "Other animals"

The main reason that I have previously made the division is that there is a lot of difference between the terms used to describe two-legged animals four-legged animals. That said, and  perhaps we could consider merging them all together. --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:34, 18 November 2015 (UTC)--Tom (LT) (talk) 23:34, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually on further thought as you state CFCF this article would be better with all the bits brought together. If we flip the phrasing round "The nose is the anterior --> The anterior, or frontal part, is the nose" it's much easier to represent both human and animal portions together. --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:37, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I actually don't think the section names are correct. Birds use the same terminology as everything else, because the spine is held horizontally; ditto for non-avian theropods. I think the only non-humans for which the terminology might be the same as humans are other orthograde apes and penguins, but I can't confirm either and I suspect the latter will simply use standard bird terminology since they're only orthograde when terrestrial. HCA (talk) 16:12, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing this out,, you make a good point. This is a very confusing article to edit because there are so many nuances to convey yet still make it understandable to the lay reader :(. Any additional thoughts? --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:29, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Not really; at the end of the day, it's all terminology, which requires some degree of memorization. The presentation manner here is about as good as usual, and I'm not really aware of any ways to make it more accessible other than just encouraging students to practice using it. HCA (talk) 15:39, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Ping because I don't think it went through. The biggest difference between animals is if they have radial or bilateral symmetry. The differences between humans and other bilateral animals is only down to the neuraxis and basically only covers the different position of the head, and different use of anterior and posterior. Worth noting is that even in human embryology ant/post mean the same as in the rest of biology, so maybe we could narrow down the entire difference to a single paragraph in the intro section?  CFCF   💌 📧 19:40, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Also after reading the Comparison between animal and human anatomical terminology section I'm pretty positive it can be scrapped in favor of a single 4-5 sentence paragraph. The table is completely superfluous and the text repeats itself and uses excessive examples. CFCF   💌 📧 19:43, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've removed the table, I agree it does not add value to the article. It would in my view also enhance readability if we stripped the constant references to (eg) 'Anterior and superoior form Anterior-superior axis ' in lieu of just using the single 'axes' subsection. --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:29, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I think the subsections are not being used correctly. They create oddities when linking anatomical terms being used to describe the "wrong" kind of animal (i.e. one that is not the topic of that section). Thus I linked distal in a spider article, but the text so linked then begins "As in other vertebrates, the terms proximal and distal are used ...", which is off-putting to the reader. Given the title of the article, I think it would be much better to deal first with standard terms, used in essentially the same way in all animals, and then afterwards explain any terms with different uses. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:56, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments too, . I've merged the two sections per yours and multiple comments above and will give the text a thorough copyedit as well. I agree this new approach seems to make much more sense. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:38, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
 * OK I've given this article a thorough washing down. Will continue in 1-2 days over the "other animals" section. As stated by multiple commentators this structure is, I feel, indeed a better structure, having all the animals lumped together. I've also tried to unify all the etymology using the ety template; remove as much superfluous information as I can, and remove the two large tables, which I strongly feel added to the confusion rather than reduced it. I have moved the specific information about humans to the 'specific animals' section. Please let me know what you all think :) --Tom (LT) (talk) 03:47, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That's about it from me. Not sure I can take too much more of reading over and over this material, feel free for other editors to contribute :). --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:16, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Tom, I think you've greatly improved the article. I'm now inclined to remove the "improve" tagging, unless anyone thinks otherwise. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:45, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Use of "proximal" and "distal" with an explicit reference point
When "proximal" and "distal" are used without any explicit point of reference, they mean proximal (near) and distal (far) relative to the main body mass. Thus in this usage, it can be said that the upper arm is proximal and the hand distal, meaning that the upper arm is near to the trunk and the hand is far from the trunk.

The article says that "proximal" and "distal" can also be used with an explicit point of reference (i.e. other than relative to the main body mass). Thus if the reference point is the hand, the wrist is proximal to the hand and the elbow is distal to the hand (being separated by the wrist and forearm). I'm not sure that this usage is sufficiently common to be worth including, but if it is, the example must be chosen so that it doesn't exactly match the normal or default use, otherwise the example doesn't make the required point. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:42, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I think you are misinterpreting the article (statement now removed). In your example the hand is distal to the wrist and the elbow is proximal to the hand. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:09, 7 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm very happy to remove the entire reference to the uses of these terms with an explicit point of reference other than the main body mass, as it was previously written, and I've now removed the last bit in the article.
 * I've now added what I think is the normal "relative" usage. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:05, 7 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Other uses There are uses of "proximal" and "distal" that are defined in relation to the main body mass but in relation to some other anatomical feature, which is what I assumed the article was originally attempting to explain (badly), but I may have been wrong. In the normal sense, you would expect the "proximal" part of a tooth to be the part closest to the jaw, and the "distal" part to be the part furthest from the jaw. However, this isn't how dentists define tooth surfaces. The "proximal tooth surface" is defined relative to the neighbouring tooth, not relative to the main body. The "distal tooth surface" is defined relative to the midline of the jaw, not relative to the main body. See e.g. here. Is this usage worth including in the article? Peter coxhead (talk) 12:17, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Whoops. Sorry Peter, I should have replied earlier. I agree it is worthwhile including a (short) afternote, something like: "Proximal and distal are occasionally used with a point of reference that is not the main body mass. In dental terminology, the "distal tooth surface" is defined relative to the surface nearest to the midline of the jaw, and the "proximal tooth surface" is defined relative to the neighbouring tooth." . --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:49, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Posterior/anterior v's Dorsal/ventral Suggestion
I think there needs to be something that indicates where use of these two types are appropriate. Particularly in human terms. Post./Ant. seems to be preferred, in what circumstances would D/V be more appropriate? ˥ Ǝ Ʉ H Ɔ I Ɯ (talk) 21:33, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
 * To me (a layperson), it seems like for humans, posterior is more or less synonymous with versal, and anterior with dorsal. If that is indeed the case (can someone more knowledgeable confirm?), I think the section titled "Dorsal and ventral" would benefit from a small remark to that effect, and possibly an answer to the question above. Nielius (talk) 06:50, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * They are not the same, but as you state have similar meanings (often the same meaning). Anterior and posterior refer to what is in front and behind when someone is in the Standard anatomical position. Ventral refers to the front body surface, and dorsal the back surface of the body. Anterior and posterior are used more commonly. Ventral and dorsal are often used to relate something to its embryological development. Hope that helps. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:14, 22 March 2018 (UTC)


 * It's important to be clear that when terms are applied to unusual animals that stand upright, like humans, they can have different meanings. For the overwhelming proportion of animals, posterior and anterior do not mean dorsal and ventral. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:33, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

How about merge with Standard anatomical position?
I think these two articles should be merged. --Osteology (talk) 07:55, 23 February 2016 (UTC)


 * This would make the article even more biassed towards human anatomy, the way that Standard anatomical position is written. That article needs fixing first, or its title changed to "Standard human anatomical position". The standard anatomical position to describe insects or spiders, for example, is rather different. There needs to be a major rethink on how to cover the animal kingdom properly. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:40, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks @. I agree. I previously split the articles because it was (1) very confusing to have so many topics covered in this article, and (2) standard anatomical position is referred to in numerous articles and (3) I think it is notable enough to deserve its own article. This article covers animal anatomy rather well as far as our anatomical articles go, and I don't want to lump too much extra human content here, which may confuse the reader away from the main focus of this article - the terminology. As Peter states currently "Standard anatomical position" does not mention animal anatomy - which I hope future editors will expand it to include. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:26, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Also a quick welcome to Osteology, who appears to be a new editor :). I hope you're not too discouraged by other editors disagreeing with you (WP is all about discussion!) but rest assured there's many other ways to improve the encyclopedia! Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you on my talk page. Cheers --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Ping —who may not otherwise have seen this. CFCF   💌 📧 22:58, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Improvements for lateral and medial
In the example given for medial with respect to the midline: "the medial side of the knee would be the side adjacent to the other knee". This sounds wrong or at least unclear. What is other in this case? How does adjacency factor? The medial side of the knee would be the inside of the knee, or the side facing the midline. Cdosborn (talk) 21:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Redirected Terms
I did a search for "radial deviation" and was redirected to this page, but this page makes no mention of the term. This is, to my knowledge, the standard terminology for side-flexion toward the radius, so it should appear and be defined somewhere on Wikipedia. "Ulnar deviation", by the way, does not redirect, and describes a pathological condition, rather than mere side flexion toward the ulna. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.36.197.72 (talk) 20:01, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Unclear

 * Varus and valgus meaning could be clarified by an example. ✅
 * "(fig 9)" in the text. ✅
 * :&middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 06:38, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, let me know if you see anything else that could be improved. --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:33, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I will, but it looks quite good to me as it stands. Of course I have probably missed some omissions, as one does, and just because I had no trouble following most of the explanations is no guarantee that they are pitched at the optimum level. For a non-specialist in the field I probably have more familiarity with the terminology than most, so some of the explanations might be a bit obscure to the regular reader, but I don't really know what to suggest. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 01:42, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Luminal
In the section "Other directional terms", shouldn't there be something like:


 * Luminal : on the—hollow—inside of an organ's lumen (body cavity or tubular structure); "adluminal" is towards, "abluminal" is away from the lumen. Opposite to outermost (the adventitia, serosa, or the cavity's wall).

Maybe luminal and outermost are "main terms" and ad–/abluminal are "other directional terms"? Is "outermost" the correct antonym? Any help with phrasing and sources is welcome. Wakari07 (talk) 14:23, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:BRD (...). Wakari07 (talk) 23:07, 12 December 2020 (UTC)