The median artery is an artery that is occasionally found in humans and other animals. [1] It is present in 35% of individuals born in the late 20th century. [2]
occasionally I'm reminded that biology just sucks to think about
patients often experience disruptions to splenic development during embryogenesis, resulting in an overall lack a spleen (asplenia) or development of many spleens (polysplenia)
hey what the fuck
people are like 'aspects of biology and human anatomy need to be nearly delineated and sorted into distinct boxes' and then actual biology is like 'roll 2d3+2 to determine how many artery branches your cerebrum has'
In my degree (Human Anatomy), in our final year we had an entire module dedicated to human variation.
We learned that some humans are born mirrored. Their heart is on the right, their liver in their left, etc. Sometimes only a few organs are flipped which can present problems. Other times the person might have no idea until they seek medical advice for unrelated issues.
We learned that only a very small amount of blood vessels are genetically programmed to grow where they're meant to, and the rest get built as your body grows from embryo-size, blood vessels form where blood vessels are needed. Everyone's vein patterns are really different as a result, more individual than fingerprints.
We learned that kidneys and spleens have a high amount of variation.
We learned that pelvic bone structure is at most an indication of what sex/gender the person might have been, with at least 4 different types of pelvic shape, and none of them confined to only biologically male or female people.
The year before we had already seen this in action during dissection classes, where no two bodies looked the same, and none of them looked like the pictures in the textbooks.
The real world is messy. Science is messy, biology is messy, anatomy is messy. You learn about statistical averages in school and if you keep getting educated after school you'll learn that it is never that simple.
