maxillary vein
A vein that consists of a short trunk which accompanies the first part of the internal maxillary artery. It is formed by a confluence of the veins of the pterygoid plexus, and passes backward between the sphenomandibular ligament and the neck of the mandible, and unites with the superficial temporal vein to form the retromandibular vein. [WP,unvetted]. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.
What the maxillary vein is
A vein that consists of a short trunk which accompanies the first part of the internal maxillary artery. It is formed by a confluence of the veins of the pterygoid plexus, and passes backward between the sphenomandibular ligament and the neck of the mandible, and unites with the superficial temporal vein to form the retromandibular vein. [WP,unvetted]. The atlas records it as a vein at the organ scale in the human body.
Where the maxillary vein is
It sits within the cardiovascular system. Only the system is known. The position shown carries almost no spatial information.
What the maxillary vein connects to
The atlas records 3 typed relationships for it, across 3 kinds of connection. a kind of vein.
Supply and innervation
Venous drainage: retromandibular vein.
Source
Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001660, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
- A kind of: vein.
- Connected to: pterygoid plexus.
- drains to: retromandibular vein.
Questions
Where is the maxillary vein?
It sits within the cardiovascular system. Only the system is known. The position shown carries almost no spatial information.
What does the maxillary vein connect to?
A kind of: vein.
Is the maxillary vein 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.