external ear
Part of the ear external to the tympanum (eardrum). It typically consists of a tube (the external auditory meatus) that directs sound waves on to the tympanum, and may also include the external pinna, which extends beyond the skull[GO]. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.
What the external ear is
Part of the ear external to the tympanum (eardrum). It typically consists of a tube (the external auditory meatus) that directs sound waves on to the tympanum, and may also include the external pinna, which extends beyond the skull[GO]. The atlas records it as a region at the region scale in the human body.
Where the external ear is
It sits in the head, within the sensory system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.
What the external ear connects to
The atlas records 16 typed relationships for it, across 6 kinds of connection. part of ear and material anatomical entity.
Supply and innervation
This dataset asserts no arterial supply, venous drainage or innervation for the external 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 auricular region, auricular region of head, outer ear and auris externa. Searching any of those names reaches this page.
Source
Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001691, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
- Part of: ear and material anatomical entity.
- A kind of: anatomical structure and subdivision of head.
- contains: cartilage of external ear, external acoustic meatus, outer epithelial layer of tympanic membrane, pinna, skin of external ear and strand of hair on external ear.
- contributes to morphology of: ear, head and lobule of pinna.
- subtype: left external ear and right external ear.
- overlaps: tympanic membrane.
Questions
Where is the external ear?
It sits in the head, within the sensory system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.
What does the external ear connect to?
Part of: ear and material anatomical entity.
Is the external 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.