Mondo Knows Facts
The spine starts with thirty-three separate bones
Nine of them fuse during growth to form the sacrum and the coccyx A newborn spine has 33 vertebrae, arranged as seven cervical, twelve thoracic, five lumbar, five sacral and four coccygeal. The sacral bones fuse into one structure, as do most of the coccygeal bones. Adults therefore have 24 individual movable vertebrae plus the fused sections below. It sits in Mondo's human body collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
American Association of Neurological Surgeons
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: spine, bones, vertebrae
The spine starts with thirty-three separate bones: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Nine of them fuse during growth to form the sacrum and the coccyx. The figure is taken from American Association of Neurological Surgeons, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a human body fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Human Body shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.