fontanelle

Anatomical structure that is a membranous gap between bones of the skull[TAO]. In humans: Fontanelles are soft spots on a baby's head which, during birth, enable the bony plates of the skull to flex, allowing the child's head to pass through the birth canal. The ossification of the bones of the skull cause the fontanelles to close over by a child's second birthday. The closures eventually form the sutures of the neurocranium. Although there are the two anterior and posterior fontanelles, there are two more fontanelles of interest, the mastoid fontanelle, and the sphenoidal fontanelle[WP]. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the fontanelle is

Anatomical structure that is a membranous gap between bones of the skull[TAO]. In humans: Fontanelles are soft spots on a baby's head which, during birth, enable the bony plates of the skull to flex, allowing the child's head to pass through the birth canal. The ossification of the bones of the skull cause the fontanelles to close over by a child's second birthday. The closures eventually form the sutures of the neurocranium. Although there are the two anterior and posterior fontanelles, there are two more fontanelles of interest, the mastoid fontanelle, and the sphenoidal fontanelle[WP]. The atlas records it as a joint at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the fontanelle is

It sits in the head, within the skeletal system. Not positioned individually, and containment is not asserted either. Drawn near structures of the same kind, which is a weak claim about location.

What the fontanelle connects to

The atlas records 7 typed relationships for it, across 4 kinds of connection. part of neurocranium.

Supply and innervation

This dataset asserts no arterial supply, venous drainage or innervation for the fontanelle. 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 fontanel, fontanelles, fontanels and fonticuli cranii. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0002221, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: neurocranium.
• A kind of: cranial suture and fibrous joint.
• Adjacent to: cranial suture.
• subtype: anterior fontanel, posterior fontanelle and sphenoidal fontanelle.

Questions

Where is the fontanelle?

It sits in the head, within the skeletal system. Not positioned individually, and containment is not asserted either. Drawn near structures of the same kind, which is a weak claim about location.

What does the fontanelle connect to?

Part of: neurocranium.

Is the fontanelle 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.