ear

Sense organ in vertebrates that is specialized for the detection of sound, and the maintenance of balance. Includes the outer ear and middle ear, which collect and transmit sound waves; and the inner ear, which contains the organs of balance and (except in fish) hearing. Also includes the pinna, the visible part of the outer ear, present in some mammals. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the ear is

Sense organ in vertebrates that is specialized for the detection of sound, and the maintenance of balance. Includes the outer ear and middle ear, which collect and transmit sound waves; and the inner ear, which contains the organs of balance and (except in fish) hearing. Also includes the pinna, the visible part of the outer ear, present in some mammals. The atlas records it as a sense organ at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the ear is

It sits in the head, within the sensory system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.

What the ear connects to

The atlas records 21 typed relationships for it, across 5 kinds of connection. part of head, sensory system and vestibulo-auditory system.

Supply and innervation

This dataset asserts no arterial supply, venous drainage or innervation for the ear. Only a minority of structures carry those edges here, so an empty answer means nothing has been recorded — not that there is nothing to record.

Also called

Also recorded as auditory apparatus and auris. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001690, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: head, sensory system and vestibulo-auditory system.
• A kind of: anatomical structure and organ.
• contains: crista of ampulla of anterior semicircular duct of membranous laybrinth, crista of ampulla of lateral semicircular duct of membranous laybrinth, crista of ampulla of posterior semicircular duct of membranous laybrinth, endolymphatic sac, external ear and inner epithelial layer of tympanic membrane, and 6 more.
• contributes to morphology of: external ear and middle ear.
• subtype: left ear and right ear.

Questions

Where is the ear?

It sits in the head, within the sensory system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.

What does the ear connect to?

Part of: head, sensory system and vestibulo-auditory system.

Is the ear 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.