descending colon
The portion of the colon between the left colic flexure and the sigmoid colon at the pelvic brim; the portion of the descending colon lying in the left iliac fossa is sometimes called the iliac colon. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.
What the descending colon is
The portion of the colon between the left colic flexure and the sigmoid colon at the pelvic brim; the portion of the descending colon lying in the left iliac fossa is sometimes called the iliac colon. The atlas records it as a organ at the organ scale in the human body.
Where the descending colon is
It sits within the digestive system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.
What the descending colon connects to
The atlas records 12 typed relationships for it, across 8 kinds of connection. a kind of proximal-distal subdivision of colon.
Supply and innervation
Arterial supply: descending branch of left colic artery, inferior mesenteric artery and left colic artery. Venous drainage: left colic vein. Innervation: inferior mesenteric nerve plexus.
Also called
Also recorded as colon descendens. Searching any of those names reaches this page.
Source
Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001158, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
- A kind of: proximal-distal subdivision of colon.
- Supplied by: descending branch of left colic artery, inferior mesenteric artery and left colic artery.
- Continuous with: sigmoid colon and transverse colon.
- contains: mucosa of descending colon and submucosa of descending colon.
- Develops from: hindgut.
- Innervated by: inferior mesenteric nerve plexus.
- Drained by: left colic vein.
- overlaps: splenic flexure of colon.
Questions
Where is the descending colon?
It sits within the digestive system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.
What does the descending colon connect to?
A kind of: proximal-distal subdivision of colon.
Is the descending colon the same in other species?
Leumas holds the same relationship vocabulary for every species it carries, so where another dataset records this structure you can put the two side by side on /compare.