platysma

The platysma is a pharyngeal arch 2 muscle and a superficial facial muscle that participates in oral/pharyngeal behaviors and is innervated by the cervical branch of the facial nerve. It attaches to the mandible and it attaches to the skin of the head, neck, and thoracic region where it is found superficial to the clavicle. Burrows et al. (2011) argue that in hylobatids (and, presumably, other primates) the platysma in the region of the modiolus represents both the cervicale and myoides muscles. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the platysma is

The platysma is a pharyngeal arch 2 muscle and a superficial facial muscle that participates in oral/pharyngeal behaviors and is innervated by the cervical branch of the facial nerve. It attaches to the mandible and it attaches to the skin of the head, neck, and thoracic region where it is found superficial to the clavicle. Burrows et al. (2011) argue that in hylobatids (and, presumably, other primates) the platysma in the region of the modiolus represents both the cervicale and myoides muscles. The atlas records it as a muscle at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the platysma is

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

What the platysma connects to

The atlas records 11 typed relationships for it, across 7 kinds of connection. part of hypodermis and integumental system.

Supply and innervation

Innervation: nerve of cervical vertebra.

Also called

Also recorded as platysma muscle, platysma cervicale, platysma myoides and neck platysma muscle. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0005467, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: hypodermis and integumental system.
• A kind of: facial muscle, muscle organ and skeletal muscle organ, vertebrate.
• inserts into: mouth and orbicularis oris muscle.
• Develops from: pharyngeal arch 2.
• Innervated by: nerve of cervical vertebra.
• superficial to: deep cervical fascia.
• antagonist of: temporalis muscle.

Questions

Where is the platysma?

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

What does the platysma connect to?

Part of: hypodermis and integumental system.

Is the platysma 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.