masseter muscle

Pharyngeal arch 1 muscle that participates in oral/pharyngeal behaviors, is innervated by masseteric nerve branches of the trigeminal nerve (CN V), and attaches to mandible and zygomatic arch. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the masseter muscle is

Pharyngeal arch 1 muscle that participates in oral/pharyngeal behaviors, is innervated by masseteric nerve branches of the trigeminal nerve (CN V), and attaches to mandible and zygomatic arch. The atlas records it as a muscle at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the masseter muscle is

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

What the masseter muscle connects to

The atlas records 15 typed relationships for it, across 9 kinds of connection. part of cheek.

Supply and innervation

Arterial supply: masseteric artery and transverse facial artery. Venous drainage: masseteric vein. Innervation: masseteric nerve.

Also called

Also recorded as masseter and musculus masseter. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001597, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: cheek.
• A kind of: masticatory muscle.
• Attaches to: lateral surface of mandible, zygomatic arch and risorius muscle.
• contains: deep part of masseter muscle, skeletal muscle tissue of masseter and superficial part of masseter muscle.
• originates from: maxilla and zygomatic arch.
• Supplied by: masseteric artery and transverse facial artery.
• Innervated by: masseteric nerve.
• inserts into: mandible.

Questions

Where is the masseter muscle?

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

What does the masseter muscle connect to?

Part of: cheek.

Is the masseter muscle 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.