parotid gland

The parotid gland is the largest of the salivary glands. It is found wrapped around the mandibular ramus, and it secretes saliva through Stensen's duct into the oral cavity, to facilitate mastication and swallowing. [WP,unvetted]. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the parotid gland is

The parotid gland is the largest of the salivary glands. It is found wrapped around the mandibular ramus, and it secretes saliva through Stensen's duct into the oral cavity, to facilitate mastication and swallowing. [WP,unvetted]. The atlas records it as a gland at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the parotid gland is

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

What the parotid gland connects to

The atlas records 19 typed relationships for it, across 6 kinds of connection. part of cheek and lower jaw region.

Supply and innervation

Arterial supply: transverse facial artery. Venous drainage: parotid vein.

Also called

Also recorded as parotid and glandula parotidea. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001831, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: cheek and lower jaw region.
• A kind of: buccal salivary gland, major salivary gland and serous gland.
• contains: acinus of parotid gland, epithelium of parotid gland, mesenchyme of parotid, parotid gland ducto-acinar unit, parotid gland excretory duct and parotid gland intercalated duct, and 5 more.
• contributes to morphology of: parotid main excretory duct.
• Drained by: parotid vein.
• Supplied by: transverse facial artery.

Questions

Where is the parotid gland?

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

What does the parotid gland connect to?

Part of: cheek and lower jaw region.

Is the parotid gland 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.